It seems the reputation of Wimbledon’s Court Number Two as the “Graveyard of Champions” may be a little unfair, according to a Middlesex University lecturer.

Dr Emma Ball, senior lecturer in Statistics, analysed data from the former Court Two and found seeded players actually had a better win ratio on that court against unseeded or lower seeded players than on all other courts.

Both the Williams sisters have slipped up there in the past.

This year’s winner, Serena, was beaten by Jill Craybas in 2005 and Venus fell victim to Jelena Jankovic the following year.

But the data from all matches from 1968 to 2008 showed that overall, for all singles players, the seeded/higher-seeded players had a lower loss- rate on Court Two compared to the other courts (15.8% compared with 19.1%).

The same is true when men’s and women’s matches are analysed separately; for the men the loss rate is 18.2% compared with 21.6% on other courts and for the women the loss rate is 13.1% as opposed to 16.6% on other courts.

Dr Ball said: “It would seem Court Two unjustly gained its reputation as the ‘Graveyard of Champions’ and it could be that this reputation made it more noticeable when there were high-profile losses there.”

Middlesex University is the home of one of the UK’s few Real Tennis courts.

The Millennium Court opened on the Hendon Campus in 2000.

Real Tennis is derived from a form of the game played by the royal family back in Shakespeare’s day. In 1600, it was estimated that Paris alone had an estimated 1800 courts, and the game was played by the Three Musketeers in the Alexandre Dumas novel of the same name.