The 2017 Aegon Championships – How Likely Is It That The Winner Will Win Wimbledon?

The 2017 Aegon Championships are underway at London’s historic Queen’s Club, and some of the world’s top tennis players are competing to win this much-loved tournament.
However, success in the championships is sometimes seen as a sign that a player could do well at Wimbledon the following month. So how many of the tournament’s singles’ winners have gone on to triumph at the UK’s Grand Slam event and what could this mean for this year’s Aegon Championships victor?

How Many Players Have Achieved the Queen’s and Wimbledon Double?
While victory at the Queen’s Club Championships is no guarantee that a player will secure the UK’s most famous tennis trophy, plenty of players have won both tournaments in the same calendar year.

Last year, for example, Andy Murray won both events; a feat he also achieved in 2013. Rafael Nadal secured both titles in 2008, following in the footsteps of Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt, who had seized both trophies six years before. Unfortunately for British fans, Hewitt’s gain that year was also their loss; he defeated Tim Henman in the final of the Queen’s Club Championships for the second year in a row.

In total, twelve players have triumphed at both tournaments in a single year, including Pete Sampras, who claimed both titles in 1995 and 1999. Boris Becker, also won them both in 1985, aged just 17, becoming the youngest and first unseeded Wimbledon champion in the process.

The first player to achieve this double was Joshua Pim, way back in 1893, just three years after the inaugural Queen’s Club Championships took place, while the first in the Open Era was John McEnroe, in 1981. McEnroe, like Murray and Sampras, won both titles in one year on two occasions, the second of which was in 1984. Roy Emerson also achieved this, winning them in 1965 and 1965, while Tony Wilding did it three times: in 1910, 1911 and 1912.

Victory at Queen’s – How Far Is It An Indicator of Immediate Grand Slam Success?
Of course, not every player competes in both events. This year, for example, whilst many top-ranked players are playing at the Queen’s Championships, some big names set to compete in July’s Grand Slam tournament are notable by their absence.

Rafael Nadal, for example, who secured a record-breaking tenth French Open win at Roland Garros earlier this month, pulled out of the Aegon Championships due to exhaustion, but will be amongst the favourites to secure the Gentleman’s Singles Trophy in July. Other key players absent from the Aegon Championships this year include Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, neither of whom entered the event, and Juan Martin del Potro, who withdrew due to injury.

The performance of those who do compete at the Aegon Championships can certainly give tennis fans an idea of which players are currently on form on grass. However, although a number of tournament winners have gone on to achieve immediate Grand Slam glory, those that haven’t still outnumber those that have.

Despite this, however, the 2017 Aegon Championships’ cup is a tennis trophy that many big names would love to win and the remainder of this year’s tournament is sure to be a sporting event to watch.

Who do you think will triumph in the singles event at the 2017 Aegon Championships? Do you think they’ll go on to win the Grand Slam next month too? Share your thoughts with us on Twitter, Facebook or in the comments section.