Despite being among the wealthiest athletes in the world, Wimbledon's biggest names all clamour over the same must-have freebie at Wimbledon: the tournament towel. 

 

尽管参加温网的选手都属世界上最富有的运动员之列，但他们却都钟情于相同的比赛必备用品：那就是比赛用的毛巾。

 

At least 4,000 towels go missing each year as players - including the likes of Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams - stash¹ away as many as they can fit in their holdalls. 

 

However, this year the All England Club has come up with a new ploy² to put off younger players from joining the craze - by offering them plain white towels, instead of the senior players' brightly-coloured versions. 

 

George Spring, Wimbledon's Court Attending Manager, told how he has come to expect that the club will only get back three quarters of the 6,000 towels they produce for the tournament each year.

 

He said: "The juniors for many years I believe were having a competition to see how many they can get. But our policy now is that if they do ask for another towel we will give them a white towel and they soon don't ask for another when that happens. 

 

"We are trying to break in the next generation of towel connoisseurs³."

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