06-07-2025
The net gains of Wimbledon stars — stealing 500 towels a day
When you're handing out £53.5 million in prize money, you wouldn't have thought there was any incentive for Wimbledon players to steal one of the championship's £40 towels. You'd be wrong.
About 500 a day were 'not returned' by players last week, with some laughing about their enthusiasm for relieving the All England Club of its cotton green and purple towels.
In fact, Wimbledon has this year for the first time resigned itself to the fact that players all love stealing the towels, with staff told to not even try to get them back.
Winston Sedgwick, the assistant manager of the court services team, said: 'There isn't a limit on how many towels we can give out, and frankly a lot of the players know that. There used to be an expectation that we, the court services teams, would ask and try and get towels back. That has stopped now.'
