Forget the strawberries and cream… It looks like Jamie Delgado is the real fixture at the All England Club, at least for the last two decades…
The 37-year-old half-Spanish tennis player set a men’s record by playing at Wimbledon for the 23rd consecutive year on Wednesday.
The British Delgado, predominantly a doubles specialist, and his partner Gilles Muller of Luxembourg won their first-round doubles match 2-6, 2-6, 7-6 (3), 6-3, 6-2 over Lu Yen-hsun of Taiwan and Divij Sharan of India.
The International Tennis Federation said Delgado played junior Wimbledon tournaments from 1992 to ’95 and played in Wimbledon men’s singles or doubles from 1995 to 2014.
Delgado isn’t playing in the men’s singles draw this year.
Delgado shared the Wimbledon men’s mark of 22 years in a row with Mark Knowles of the Bahamas. Knowles played men’s doubles last year, but he only entered an exhibition doubles event this year.
The longest consecutive Wimbledon streaks are held by two women — Virginia Wade played 26 years in a row and Martina Navratilova 24.