[29] He made his first appearance at the Wimbledon Championships in June 1904, defeating Albert Prebble in the first round of the singles event before losing to Harold Mahony in four sets.

[32] He won his first title in England at the Championships of Shropshire followed by a win at the Thompson Challenge Cup in Redhill; both relatively new and minor events on the tennis circuit.

[34] At his second Wimbledon appearance he came back from two-sets down to defeat William Clothier in the fourth round but lost in the quarterfinal against the experienced Arthur Gore.

[35] In July 1905 he made his first Davis Cup appearance as part of the Australasia team[c] in the semifinal against Austria, played at the Queen's Club, London.

[38][39] In August he won the Pöseldorf Cup in Hamburg followed by a title win at the Championship of Europe in Homburg which were both, as almost all tournaments on the European mainland, played on clay.

[40][41][42] Starting in February 1906 Wilding toured during almost the entire year across continental Europe and England, sometimes travelling by train but most often on his beloved motorcycle.

For the first time he played the French Riviera circuit and won tournaments in cities throughout Europe including Cannes, Paris, Lyon, Barcelona, Wiesbaden, Reading, Prague, Bad Homburg and Vienna.

Wilding's run at the 1906 Wimbledon Championships ended, as it had done the previous year, with a straight-sets defeat against the veteran Arthur Gore, this time in the semifinal.

[48] At the 1907 Wimbledon Championships Wilding had the misfortune to be drawn in the same section[f] as tournament favourite and eventual champion Norman Brookes who defeated him in their second-round match in five sets.

[g][50] Reluctant to return to New Zealand to practise law, as he originally intended, Wilding instead decided to play a circuit of European tournaments.

In March 1908 he partnered Major Ritchie to win the doubles title at the South of France tournament against multiple Wimbledon champions Lawrence and Reginald Doherty.

In 1913 at Wimbledon tennis player and author A. Wallis Myers says that he played "the best game of his life", beating American Maurice McLoughlin, the 1912 U.S. National Championships winner, in three straight sets.

In a sense, this was the equivalent of achieving what would later become known as the Grand Slam of Tennis because all three of the major tournaments sanctioned by the world governing body were won by one player and all in one calendar year.

[64][65][h] In 1914 Wilding retained his World Hard Court Championship title in Paris without losing a single set, defeating Ludwig von Salm-Hoogstraeten in the final.

Norman Brookes in 1950 compiled a ranking list of greatest tennis players and put Wilding fourth behind Bill Tilden and the Dohertys, and ahead of Budge, Kramer, Lacoste and Perry.

[31] He also played for the Canterbury cricket team in the early 1900s where he participated in two first-class matches as a lower middle-order batsman and medium-pace change bowler.

In July 1908 he won a gold medal in a 1,437 kilometres (893 mi) reliability trial from Land's End to John o' Groats on his BAT-JAP motorcycle.

[80] Wilding remained in the Marines for just a few days and was then attached to the Intelligence Corps due to his intimate knowledge of the continent and his skills as a motorist.

After a week's leave in London in February 1915 he returned to France on 16 March 1915 and was posted to a new squadron made up of armoured Rolls-Royce cars under the command of the Duke of Westminster.

In his last letter dated 8 May he wrote "For really the first time in seven and a half months I have a job on hand which is likely to end in gun, I, and the whole outfit being blown to hell.

[82][83] The next day, 9 May, he was killed in action at 4:45 in the afternoon during the Battle of Aubers Ridge at Neuve-Chapelle, France when a shell exploded on the roof of the dug-out he was sheltering in.

[90] Wilding Park, the principal venue for tennis in Christchurch, New Zealand, was named after his father, Frederick, but in the public perception became associated with him.

[93] Shortly after Wilding's death the sculptor Paolo Troubetzkoy made a bronze statuette based on him titled Physical Energy.