I attended Wimbledon on the opening day. London’s weather forgot the usual formula of Wimbledon=Rain and continued its heat wave that started on the weekend before.
Seeing the players up close and observing such details as the texture of the grass and the goings on around the court make it an experience you don’t get on TV.
Wimbledon is renown for its queues so I didn’t hold much prospect of getting in. Upon arrival at midday the queue stretched for as far as the eye could see, making it a blockbuster in the literal sense.
The British are world beaters when it comes to forming a queue, and at Wimbledon they have the art mastered. When joining the end of the line you receive a numbered ticket, a collectors item in itself, to keep your place in-line.
[Wimbledon Queue]
Houses along the way turn their front yards into food stalls and flagstands. One man was selling Womble’s, which as a consequence meant that I was singing the Womble’s of Wimbledon theme song in my head all day. Wimbledon would be a great place to live, but this reason alone would put me off living here.
The queue moved quickly and I was at the gate in 45 minutes, and I got a daily ground pass. For centre and court one tickets, only 500 tickets are available to the public each day, so the queue for for those tickets start the day before.
[No Tents]
A daily ground pass ticket gains you access to Court 2 (Standing) and courts 3 to 19. If you go early in the first week this will give you the chance to see some seeded players in the outer courts.
[Evie Dominikovic from Australia]
Of course no visit to Wimbledon can be complete without having strawberries and cream.
[Wimbledon Strawberries and Cream]