What I love about London

The Queue in 1934.

7. Seeing the 125th Wimbledon

I have been traveling for the last 3 weeks or so but returned to some great news at home: Wimbledon was on- and with a little determination, my visiting friend (we shall call her Mollita) and I would be able to go!

The key to acquiring Wimbledon tickets (other than, of course, ruling the world) was to come early and stand in The Queue. Some die-hard fans actually camp out the night before to secure their tickets to see the biggest rivalries in tennis compete. But because neither Mollita nor I are die-hard, and because we had just returned from a long backpacking trip from Spain (more on this later), we opted to sleep in beds and get up at the crack of dawn.

The Queue is held every year in Wimbledon Park- convenient for me, since I know the area fairly well due to my nannying job. Apparently queueing has been a Wimbledon tradition for years and ensures that some of us average folk get to see the action inside, as well as those tennis clubs who are given the chance to get Wimbledon tickets (at what I assume are much higher prices). I read in the paper a couple weeks ago that last minute, black market Wimbledon ticket prices can easily be in the several thousand pounds category.

So yesterday morning, Mollita and I came out to the park where we were given Queue cards and Code of Conduct pamphlets (Rule 1. Respect the queue!). We spread out a blanket, took out the novels and newspapers we had prepared to read during the wait, and remarked about how organized and orderly the Queue was being run. However, we had been there maybe all of an hour when our part of the Queue was called in and we all began the half an hour trek to the stadia grounds. We and our Australian queue friends were delighted. A steward told us on the way in that had we been at the same position in the Queue yesterday, we would have had to wait another 5 hours before being let in. The officials make the call based on many conditions- how long the Queue is, the weather conditions, etc.

So Mollita and I were soon inside, looking up at the ivy-covered Center Court and still kind of bewildered that we had actually gotten in. (We had prepared ourselves to be disappointed because it all seemed too easy.) We had lunch and watched the Baghdakis-Seppi match in Court 3 during two rain breaks, when around 6:00 pm, Baghdakis finally put the nail in Seppi's coffin. I never realized how much I enjoyed watching tennis- but then again, if you're not going to learn that at Wimbledon, when are you going to?

We also learned that you have to be really good at queueing to have a successful Wimbledon experience. There are queues for everything- but you have to know when to get in them (early) and when to keep them within eyesight (when the fire marshal only lets in a few lucky fans at a time but does not allow anybody to loiter about). The queueing meant that when you got a seat to a match, if you got up for any reason (to lose the loo or get food), your seat would be filled with someone else from the queue. The trick, we learned, was to find a pushover for a queueing steward.

We got dinner (though no traditional strawberries and cream which is apparently the official Wimbledon snack) and kept drifting from court to court (there are around 20) until nightfall. We left two slightly sunburned and happy girls. Here are the pictures from the day: