Wimbledon
From TheGredil
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A Day At Wimbledon
It was the second Thursday of The Championships. The start of the finals zone. We were unsuccessful in getting any tickets in the mysterious and highly irregular ballot, for the second year running, so we decided to make our way down to London and give this queuing system a go. The English love a good queue and there's almost a sense of pride about the one they produce this time of year at the All England Lawn Tennis Club.
The Queue
We decided not to camp overnight and, after making our way down to the end of the District Line on the Underground, we arrived at the AELTC about 0800. We were ushered on to a path, pleasantly winding its way through the local park. After a couple of hundred meters found ourselves at the back of The Queue. We were soon beset upon by Marshals bearing The Queuing Guide to Wimbledon, "I queued at Wimbledon" stickers and our official Queuing Card. Like I said, very proud of their queuing! Our queuing card informed us, surprisingly, that we were number 285 and 286 in the queue. That's not too bad. Given our decision to make it a late start on our first day we were expecting something in the thousands.
Tickets for Court 1!
After standing around for a while, getting older, the order of play came out. A few familiar names were there. Sam Stosur, the Woodys and a Junior by the name of B Tomic make up the Aussies playing on the day. We were also delighted to hear that 500 tickets were being made available for Court 1 with the conclusion of the men's quarter final match between Schuettler and Clement, that only made it to the first set, from the previous day before being stopped due to poor light. We decided to purchase the tickets for Court 1 and figured we now had enough to keep us busy for a while.
Touching in The Queue
The queue jolted forward about 0845 and we found ourselves at a security checkpoint. Just like the airport it was empty your pockets, off with your belts and bags through the X-ray before we could pass. Of course, being the only person in the vicinity under 50 and therefore not needing to ask six times exactly what to put through the X-ray, I must have been the terrorist so despite not setting off the alarm was pulled aside for “the pat-down”. It was then another few hundred meters walk to the next queue. This time though, we could see the gate. After another half an hour or so we lunged forward again, got through the main gate were we excitedly paid for our Court 1 tickets. Section 12. I wonder where that is. Another 10 paces and another pause. The grounds don't actually open until 0930 so we waited like sheered sheep in a pen behind the waist high rope.
Inside "The Club"
After the rope dropped and we were able to wander around the grounds we had a look at the various shops and what was around the grounds. The AELTC is a very beautiful setting and and quite a pleasant area just to hang around. There was a lovely lawn area to sit and watch matches on the big screen and plenty of gardens surrounding the seemingly endless supply of outer courts that we could pop in and out of at any time once play started. After a bit of shopping and some lunch we decided to find the court were one of the up-and-coming Aussie juniors, Bernard Tomic was playing. It was a very cosy affair with only a few rows on either side and a small “grandstand” at one end. A good warm-up for things to come. Unfortunately we had to leave at the end of the first set to take our seat for the start of play on Court 1.
In Court 1
We found our gangway and was met by an RAF chap who escorted us to our seats. Third row from the front! Wow. It was better than we could of hoped for. These seats obviously aren't ideal because for an hour or two, late in the afternoon, the sun is directly across from you so you have the sun in your face but that was a minor glitch on what were otherwise fantastic seats and worth the 45 pound a piece.
It wasn't long before the action started and we were treated to some excellent tennis. The match between Schuettler and Clement was very close with both the third and fourth set being decided by a tie break. Unfortunately the rain came at two games all in the fifth set. The court was covered and most spectators left for some shelter. It was only a short shower so play resumed within twenty minutes or so. It was a very tight match and at 7-6 to Schuettler the skies opened yet again. This time the players were off court for a more extended period but they eventually came back on. Within five minutes of play resuming the match was all over with Schuettler moving into the semi finals.
There was a short break between matches and with the sun well and truly in our eyes we watched a semi final mixed doubles match between Pavel Vizner & Kveta Peschke from the Czech Republic and Igor Andreev & Maria Kirilenko from Russia. It was a short match, lasting just 70 minutes with the Russians coming out on top. There was supposed to be another mixed doubles match on court one but due to the length of the singles match it got moved to one of the outside courts
Australians in Action
After the matches on court one were finished we headed to the outside court to watch Aussie Sam Stosur in action in the mixed doubles with her partner Bob Bryan against Nathalie Dechy and Andy Ram. The mixed doubles is much more relaxed than the singles with the players clearly enjoying themselves.
After the Stosur match we headed to court 18 where the Woodies were playing the Jensen brothers from America in the Mens Invitational Doubles. It was a very entertaining match with the players clearly not taking it too seriously. During one game, one of the Jensen brothers gave his racquet to the ball girl and took the place of a lines person. To our surprise the points played with the ball girl counted towards the score. One of the Jensen brothers even jumped onto the other side of the court and played from there. It was a great way to end our fabulous day at Wimbledon.
