Twenty-five years on from her Ladies' Singles victory in front of Queen Elizabeth II, Virginia Wade intends to play her last Wimbledon at this year's Championships. She will be competing in the over-35s Ladies Doubles Invitation, an event she won five times with Australian Wendy Turnbull in the Nineties.

The British player was the Ladies' Centenary Champion when the Queen celebrated her Silver Jubilee in 1977 and Wade hopes to end a tennis-playing love affair with the All-England Club stretching back 40 years with a final triumph during the Queen's Golden Jubilee year in 2002.

"I'm going to play one more year," she said. "Your partner is picked out for you. I hope I get someone very good and very young, otherwise it could be very exhausting! I feel in good shape.

"It'll be fun to play in the Golden Jubilee year after what happened in 1977. I'm a bit of a royalist. Royalty is a big part of what Wimbledon is about. The Royal Box, the curtseying to it. They are ready-made superstars!"

The first woman to be elected on to the Wimbledon Committee will always be remembered in the minds of her country for her efforts 25 years ago. She stood alongside the Queen, clutching the Venus Rosewater Dish and smiling broadly but coyly as the cacophony of sound emanating from the crowd threatened to engulf everything; she was at the epicentre of one of Britain's greatest sporting moments.

She said: "The atmosphere was phenomenal. I've never experienced anything like that in England other than football's 1966 World Cup. The place went absolutely crazy. It was a cauldron of excitement and celebration. It was humbling in a way. You immersed yourself in it and then you realised the reason for it was because you'd won. I had become a part of a major celebration.

"The Queen was chatting and I was trying to lip-read what she was saying but I never really heard what she said because there was so much commotion which included the crowd singing 'for she's a jolly good fellow'. The hundred-year anniversary made it special. It was a pretty big, romantic milestone. The Silver Jubilee celebrations made it extra special. It certainly helped me be more motivated than I had been."

Wade, only too aware of Britain's expectations, was helped by the run of compatriot Sue Barker to the Semi-Finals.

"I didn't feel pressured. Sue was quite a star. I was indebted to her for taking the pressure off me and sharing it. I had always been the one Briton who would possibly win Wimbledon but she came along playing really great tennis to get as far as she did, which was tough to do."

Although her final victory against Betty Stove (Netherlands) 4-6 6-3 6-1 ensured Wade the coveted crown, she picked out her semi-final win over defending champion Chris Evert (United States) as the high point of that Championships.

"I played my best tennis of the tournament - and possibly my career - in that match."

Wade will never forget what it felt like to secure the most coveted women's title in tennis.

"Everybody said to me afterwards ' have you come down from Cloud Nine?' and I said 'no I haven't'. I never will. It was definitely one of the high points of my life. I can't tell you how satisfying it was. I'd struggled for so many years. I'd come far without excelling myself. Suddenly I put the final touches on a career.

Wade confessed she had almost given up hope of winning Wimbledon.

"It was my 16th attempt. I'd been trying since 1962. I'd virtually given up. On the big occasion you played either above or below yourself: never a normal game. You get little bits of inspiration but then other times you don't. But then, suddenly, it happened."

Her victory came at a boom time for tennis.

Wade said: "Tennis was on a real high, Chrissie, Connors, Borg. It was just like everyone wanted to be part of tennis. It was the same in the States. It was making such a big impact. There was tremendous international interest."

The main focus, then as now, was on Wimbledon. In 1977, 41 former singles champions were paraded to celebrate the centenary and the men's final produced an epic five-set match in which Sweden's Bjorn Borg defeated top seeded American Jimmy Connors to claim his second of five successive titles.

But the highlight came when a dark-haired right-hander performed before the Queen on a day etched into the sporting psyche of a nation.