The Championships, Wimbledon the 2017 tournament would begin on Monday 3 July. Other grass-court tournaments before Wimbledon are Eastbourne, England, and Rosmalen in the Netherlands, both combining mixed events. The other women's warm-up tournament for Wimbledon is Birmingham, also in England. The only grass-court tournament scheduled after the Championships is the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships at Newport, Rhode Island, USA, which takes place the week after Wimbledon. Wimbledon is scheduled for 14 days, beginning on a Monday and ending on a Sunday. Before 1982 it ended a day earlier, with the women's singles final on the Friday and the men's singles final
Henry Jones (writer) for playing lawn tennis, which proved to be a significant step. In 1877, Club Secretary John Walsh proposed that a lawn tennis championship be held, and "Wimbledon" was born. Jones and two other prominent men, Julian Marshall and John Moyer Heathcote, formed a sub-committee to frame the rules, many of which survive today, and Jones was referee at The Championships from 1877 to 1885. The only tournament of the inaugural 1877 Wimbledon Championship was the Gentlemen's Singles, which was won from a field of 22 competitors by Spencer Gore, an old Harrovian rackets player. The final attracted a crowd of