Take Away English-Summer Sport 夏季运动

Wimbledon 温布尔敦网球公开赛

Wimbledon is the most important sporting event of the British summer. Since the first tournament was played in 1877 in front of a few hundred spectators , the competition has become a global sporting event attended by over half a million people, and watched on television by millions.

The world's top tennis players agree that playing at Wimbledon is an experience like no other. John McEnroe, a three-time Wimbledon winner, describes Wimbledon as ‘the hallowed ground of the sport'.

Although the Wimbledon tennis championship has been in existence for more than a century , the sport of tennis has a much longer history. Most experts agree that the modern game has its origins in a courtyard ball game played by French monks¹ in the 11 th century.

For this reason many of the words used in tennis are of French origin. The unusual terms used in scoring a tennis match are English versions of French words: deuce (pronounced ‘juice') comes from the French word ‘deux', meaning ‘to two'. The word love , meaning zero, also has French origins.

Much has changed since the first Wimbledon Tournament in 1877 – the first champion, Spencer Gore³, won a prize of £12 (180 CNY); this year the prize money is £630,000 (9,500,000 CNY).

Indeed, success in tennis championships is a very lucrative⁴ business . 2004 Wimbledon champion, Roger Federer has won nearly $17,000,000 in prize money since turning pro² in 1998. Even more impressive, Serena and Venus Williams have won a staggering $30,000,000 between them over the last ten years.

Although, Wimbledon has traditionally been dominated by Americans and Europeans, other countries are beginning to produce world-class players . However, Li Ting and Sun Tian Tian, who won gold medals at the Athens Olympics, will not play at Wimbledon this year. They are currently seeded 146 and 52, respectively.

In future all Chinese competitors will be under pressure to do well; their coach, Jiang Hongwei, has gone on record as saying, ‘My first target is to lift my players into the top 30. Olympic gold is not enough.'

GLOSSARY 　词汇表
tournament – 锦标赛	spectators – 观众
hallowed ground – 圣地	century – 世纪
courtyard – 院子，院坝	monks – 修道士
scoring – 计分	deuce - （还要继续比赛下去的）局末评分（ 2 平， 3 平， 4 平 …… ）
love – （网球）零分	prize money – 奖金
lucrative business – 收益颇丰的生意	turning pro – 成为专业（选手）
world-class players – 世界级的球手	seeded – 被列为种子选手
gone on record – 公开、正式地宣布，并纪录下来

 

1 monks   

n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The monks lived a very ascetic life. 僧侣过着很清苦的生活。
• He had been trained rigorously by the monks. 他接受过修道士的严格训练。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 pro   

n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者

参考例句：

• The two debating teams argued the question pro and con.辩论的两组从赞成与反对两方面辩这一问题。
• Are you pro or con nuclear disarmament?你是赞成还是反对核裁军？

3 gore   

n.凝血，血污；v.（动物）用角撞伤，用牙刺破；缝以补裆；顶

参考例句：

• The fox lay dying in a pool of gore.狐狸倒在血泊中奄奄一息。
• Carruthers had been gored by a rhinoceros.卡拉瑟斯被犀牛顶伤了。

4 lucrative   

adj.赚钱的，可获利的

参考例句：

• He decided to turn his hobby into a lucrative sideline.他决定把自己的爱好变成赚钱的副业。
• It was not a lucrative profession.那是一个没有多少油水的职业。