A Day Out in Wimbledon

I never made plans to go to Wimbledon, if things worked out that way, then so be it. And so they did - I had a day off between my two jobs on the one cloudy day during Wimbledon - and rain was forecast. Nevermind, I was set on going to at least see the famous tennis grounds.

I got to Wimbledon Park around 10:30am. Normally you are expected to queue for HOURS before getting entry, some sleeping overnight to get Centre Court tickets. But today there was no queue, and I walked straight into the gates without stopping! Not only that but when I got to the gate, there were still show court tickets available (again, highly unusual). So got a Show Court 2 ticket and I was in.

After entering and buying a program, that forecasted rain starts to fall. I rush to find some cover under the nearest building. To my luck I realise that I'm under Centre Court! There was no security guarding the entrance, so I walked right in. There were some other people wandering around the stands too, but it was generally empty! So I sat on Centre Court for about an hour until the rain stopped.

Inside Centre Court at Wimbledon - but not much court action

The scoreboard on Centre Court

Then it was off to Show Court 2 where I saw (in a rain-interrupted day):

• Aussie Rennae Stubbs playing in a women's doubles match (won)
• Part 2 of the longest men's doubles match in history including Aussie Todd Perry (lost)
• Marcos Baghdatis beating Lleyton Hewitt on the big screen
• A Chinese pair beating Martina Navratilova

When I bought my ticket I did not pay attention to the seat position. Once I got in, I realised I was on the FRONT ROW! Amazing. I talked to the guy next to me, who said he had queued since 4am for his seat! I must have taken a spare one on the front row.

So many cool things about Wimbledon:

• This history and tradition can be seen everywhere. The way the linesmen and ballkids enter and exit the court, the geeky uniforms, the scoreboards done by hand, I could go on and on.
• Strawberries and cream. Yum.
• Pimm's and lemonade. Glug.
  
• Henman's Hill or Murray's Mountain or whatever they call it these days, nice way to kick back and enjoy the matches on the big screen.
• If people didn't get a ticket to Show Court 2, it's not a total loss. If you buy a ground pass, you get access to SC3 next door. If you get to the top row, you can actually look over the top and watch SC2!
• Walked next to John Fitzgerald (Aussie Davis Cup captain) for about 5 min as he walking in grounds. I don't think too many people recognised him.

Out of 8 hrs of possible play, we got about 5 hrs, so it wasn't too bad. All in all what could have been a total rainout turned out to be an amazing day on the hallowed home of tennis.

DN