03/07/2017 Newsround

Welcome to Newsround and welcome to the first day of Wimbledon -

one of the world's biggest tennis tournaments right here in the UK.

Right now it's really quiet but in just a few hours this place

is going to come to life when nearly 40,000 tennis fans

Just five minutes down the road from here, many are queuing,

as we speak, in probably the longest line you could imagine.

Here's some fun facts about this year's Wimbledon

So this year at Wimbledon there will be 674 matches played.

And if one match was played a day, it would last for over two years.

Over 54,000 tennis balls will be used during the tournament.

The longest ever match at Wimbledon was in 2010.

It lasted 11 hours and five minutes over three days.

And as a treat the players were given mashed potatoes

The fastest ever serve was by Taylor Dent in 2010

That's double the speed limit for a motorway so,

as you can imagine, that's really fast.

At Wimbledon, it's tradition to eat strawberries and cream and over

the two-week period over 28,000kg will be eaten.

That's the same weight as nearly three elephants.

Wimbledon has its very own hawk called Rufus,

who flies for one hour every morning of the Championships

Mr Popular even has his own Twitter account.

Well, we've got a great line-up of British stars playing today.

Andy Murray will be opening play on Centre Court

But it was a bit touch and go over whether he'd be able to play.

He's been struggling with a hip injury but Murray says he should be

OK and hopes it won't cause him too much bother.

On a happier note, he and his wife Kim are expecting their second baby

so congratulations to them. Well, Johanna Konta, Heather Watson

and Laura Robson are just some of the other Brits in action today

but just who is being tipped to win We asked the BBC's tennis

expert, Russell Fuller. Andy Murray is the obvious name

to start with as the defending champion, the world number one,

but he's had a very poor 2017 by his standards so far and has had

problems with his hip heading But he is a two-time

Wimbledon champion, The world number one

is Angelique Kerber. Her year has been a bit

like Andy Murray's year. She hasn't had a great deal

of success since becoming the world number one but she was in the final

in 2016 here at Wimbledon and she definitely has

the game to become champion Roger Federer is another

name that lots of people He's won the Wimbledon

title seven times. He's had a bit of a break recently

but that did him no harm He'd not been on court

for six months before that and he won the Australian Open

at the age of 35. There are high hopes

of Britain's Johanna Konta. She's performed very,

very well in the big tournaments in the last couple of years

and will be the sixth seed She did have a nasty

fall at Eastbourne. Seemed to hit her head and her back

very, very hard on the grass but, as we saw with the way she played

there, beating the world number one and the reigning French Open

champion on the same day, Rafa Nadal is the

French Open champion. He won the title in Paris

just three weeks ago. He has won Wimbledon twice

in the past but historically has suffered knee problems

here at Wimbledon. The ball bounces lower and therefore

Nadal's knees have to bend more to get down to the ball and that's

caused him problems. A five-time Wimbledon champion

but she has been playing wonderfully well over the past couple of years

and her chances are not to be That's all from me at Wimbledon

for now but I'll be back Stay where you are -

Wild And Weird is next. And today's Fave At 5 is

brand-new Hetty Feather, and Hetty and Sheila are...settling

into their new home. Yeah. Yeah! There's only one bed. I was only

expecting one maid-of-all-work.