Wimbledon Winner Takes Twitter Title In 2013
After becoming the first British man to claim the Wimbledon Singles crown since Fred Perry in 1936, Andy Murray can add another victory to his list today, as new statistics released by IBM name him the most popular player of this year’s Championship.
Based on an official Twitter analysis, Murray received more than 1.1 million mentions on the social media site during the Championships, ranking him significantly ahead of Novak Djokovic and Sabine Lisicki who take second and third place with 860,000 and 300,000 tweets respectively. On Sunday alone, Murray received 465,000 mentions on the site as fans voiced their support around the final.
Murray’s tweets were overwhelmingly supportive – securing a higher percentage of positive tweets than any other player apart from fellow Brit, Laura Robson. Overall some 93.3% of tweets for Murray were considered supportive, a number rising to 94.7% for Robson who shone as one of the breakthrough players of this year’s tournament.
Unsurprisingly, emotions ran high support at SW19, with cheers on Murray Mound reaching 114 decibels – the same volume as a loud rock concert – at the peak of the final, while fans around the world took to Twitter – posting more than 400 tweets a second during the final points of the match.
In all, more than 5.3 million Wimbledon related tweets were posted and analysed during the Championships – more than double the 2.5 million tweets from last year.
Speaking of the results, Chris Thomas, Big Data Solution Architect for IBM, said: ‘We’ve seen an unprecedented response to this year’s Championships with audiences around the globe taking to Twitter to cheer on their heroes both on the court and in the crowds. Such a huge response proves that the sport is attracting a wider fan-base across the globe.’
‘As technology develops, we no longer have to rely on seeing a game in person – or even necessarily watch it on TV. Whether watching at home or on the go, nowadays there are more ways than ever for fans to get involved and not just to enjoy the Championships, but really become part of it.’
