My two-day Wimbledon experience: part 1

[jazzyg]

In the middle of a two-week trip to England with my wife and son (sadly, my very first experience overseas at age 57), we spent three days at an Air B&B in the Wimbledon Village and I went to Wimbledon Thursday and Friday, queueing by myself the first day and having tickets to No. 1 Court the second day. The experience on day 1, though cool, was not what I expected.

Was told I needed to be in the queueing area around 6 a.m. to guarantee entry at a reasonable time. Chose to walk on a relatively cool morning and got there in about 35 minutes at 6:05 with nothing but my phone and sunscreen. The 20-something Australian native right in front of me offered her blanket to me and the older man behind me, and about 10 minutes after we sat down, I was assigned No. 7308. The man, who had queued multiple times before in previous years, said for that time it was at least 1,000 numbers higher than any other year he had been there but we were safe to get in. The long wait started, and even though it was cool in the morning after three brutally hot days in London, I soon regretted wearing jeans instead of shorts as the sun beat down on us in the open field. The whole process was orderly but very long. I had assumed I would get in the grounds when they opened at 10 but quickly learned we probably would not get in until the afternoon. That turned out to be the case. I entered the grounds at 12:30.

My other mistake was assuming the crowd would be similar to my US Open experience in 2003 and 2004, when I had Ashe tickets but spent little time there, going to any match I wanted. Wimbledon was jam packed. I looked for something to eat, and the lines were long everywhere, so I settled for some caramel popcorn from a grab and go because my goal was to watch as much tennis as possible. Unfortunately, it took me nearly an hour to get into any court with my grounds pass. After queueing hopelessly at a couple of courts, I remained patient at court 18 after no one left in the first few changeovers when I arrived. I got in near the end of the third set of Struff-Auger Aliassime. It turned out to be the side of the court where there are only three rows, and the open seat was in the front row. What an unbelievable view. I watched Struff, an odd personal favorite of mine who has been on the struggle bus for the past 12 months, break to finish off the third set. He then hit five aces in his first two service games of the fourth set, and i checked my phone to see if he already had racked up 20-plus. Nope. He had a total of two aces through the first three sets, which is a commentary on how A-A just can't seem to play well when it matters. How could he possibly have been down in the match? Struff saved break points in three straight service games before breaking to win in the fourth.

I stayed in my seat for Alexandrova-Lamens. Lamens went up an early break but Alexandrova, by far the most talented player who has not done diddly squat in any slam, won 10 of the last 11 games and won in 55 minutes. It was still fun to watch because she was on fire, and have I mentioned how great the seat was?

If I had not been so hungry by then, I would have sat there all day, but I was not very interested in the upcominig Samsonova match, so I left, missing the highly entertaining four-set battle between Monfils and Fucsovics later. Court 18 is the best spot on the grounds in my view.

The rest of the day was a bit of a struggle getting into a court. I got into Nakashima-Opelka on tiny Court 16 and watched the end of the third set (which Opelka thankfully won in a tiebreak or the match would have been over) and the fourth set from the second row. Not compelling stuff, but Nakashima put his towel about two feet away from me every time he was at my end of the court.

Tennis-wise, the highlight of the day came from an unexpected source. I made it into Court 12 for the fifth set of Holmgren-Machac, with rowdy Danish fans making plenty of noise in an incredible tight match. Holmgren ended up winning 10-5 in the match tiebreak for potentially a career-altering win. The quality and intensity was high on both ends of the court.

The rest of the evening was spent trying unsuccessfully to watch another match. Tried to see Monfils-Fucsovics from the standing-only spots above the court, but could not see behind the pack of people. Tried to get into Sonego-Basilashvile on Court 17, but no one was leaving, so I decided to walk back to the B&B.

When I got on the grounds, I had circled five matches I wanted to see. Did not catch any of them, but it's OK. Just getting to experience Wimbledon for the first time was worth it. I do think they offer too many grounds passes. You had to queue to get a pass to get in the queue at Court 3 (The top three courts were off limits for anyone with a grounds pass). The flip side is I might not have gotten in at all if they offered fewer.

[ponchi101]

I did WImbledon in 1995. It was great.
Glad you were able to enjoy it.

[dryrunguy]

I'm so glad you had a great time in spite of all the challenges. But I'm a lazy sort, so my takeaway from your experience is pretty simple--don't even think about bothering with Wimbledon unless something unexpected happens and I can afford to sit next to royalty to avoid the inconvenience.

[Suliso]

I'm sure jazzyg did just that on day 2

[Fastbackss]

Awesome journal, thank you for sharing.

Was listening to Roddick podcast and they sent their producer for the first time. He too commented on how crazy crowded it was, which was surprising to him.

I guess tomorrow is next court date on whether they are going to get more land or not, which would help with that

[ashkor87]

I had gone the day Murray was expected to retire...similar experience, though we indians handle crowds well..when you line up for
Centre court, they fo give you a number so you don't actually have to line up...

[atlpam]

We did the queue twice in 2004 and it was nowhere near the crowds you described. I think our queue numbers were around 1500 and we were through the gate before the start of play and were able to get court 1 seats one of the days. I feel like everything is more crowded these days. We went to Tanglewood for a James Taylor concert and the crowded lawn scene was definitely not what I remembered from going to Tanglewood with my family as a child.

[ashkor87]

I have been in the queue 4 times now, it was always fun, no complaints

[jazzyg]

Part 2: THE DEBENTURE EXPERIENCE

I am not really comfortable with a posh crowd, but given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend Wimbledon with my wife and son, I forked over the exorbitant amount required to reserve a seat on No. 1 court for the first Friday after not getting lucky in the tournament's lottery. We had access to food in the private dining room with minimal lines (it wasn't very good, but who cares?) and absolutely terrific seats in row J in the shade (very, very welcome) near midcourt on the second level.

When the lineup came out Thursday, I groaned because there were zero big names--all of them were playing on Centre Court and Court 2--but I ended up enjoying what I saw. The energy inside Court 1 was tremendous with Kartal playing first (against Parry) and Norrie playing second (against Mattias Bellucci, whom I'd never heard of before the tournament started), and energy at live tennis events matters to me. In the two years I went to the US Open in 2003 and 2004, the match I remember the most was not Federer-Nalbandian at Ashe in 2003 (Nalbandian won in 4 sets, but I bailed after the second set because the atmosphere was lame and I assumed Federer was going to win; he won the tournament the next five years) or my all-time favorite player Agassi versus Florian Mayer at Ashe in 2004 (Agassi won in four but again, there was little energy and he was well into his old-man phase of showing zero emotion during his matches). The most exciting match I saw was Sargis Sargsian vs. recent Olympic gold medalist Nicolas Massu in 2004 on a completely packed outside court, with Chilean and Armenian fans chanting after every point.I sat next to some Armenians who were wildly pulling for Sargsian even thought they admitted they did not think he was very good. Sargsian ended up winning a five-setter that lasted almost five hours.

I'm not sure the three matches I saw Friday lasted five hours total in court time, but it still was entertaining. I've loved Parry's game since her breakthrough at Roland Garros a couple years ago, and she was incredible in the first five games against Kartal, volleying as well as anyone on the WTA tour and showing excellent court sense to take a 4-1 lead. From there, she showed exactly why she is not in the top 100, losing the plot totally as Kartal took over and stopped making errors. I was pulling for Parry but it was obvious she was done when she complained about a bad bounce that did not exist on her (expletive) that gave Kartal the decisive break for a 5-4 lead. Kartal played very well after her slow start, and Parry could not find the court.

Norrie-Bellucci was more of the same. Bellucci got an immediate break, but Norrie was locked in and refused to make an unforced error. He is no world beater, but there are so few players who exhibit his control. Bellucci played a decent match but never was really in it, although he made a late push after falling behind 5-1 in the third set. Again, the crowd was the star, pushing Norrie to compete at the highest level.

I really wanted a three-set match in the finale between Svitolina and Mertens and expected Svitolina to win, but she already was down 5-0 by the time we returned to our seats from the lounge. Mertens, whom I've never been particularly impressed with, was sharp from the moment I sat down until the end and easily could have won 6-1, 6-3, but Svitolina won all of the important points in close game to get to 6-all and appeared ready to force a third set when she hit an ace to go up 4-2 in the tiebreak. Unfortunately, that was the last point she won on a day when she simply got outhit and out-thought by Mertens, who avenged a loss a week earlier and has been sharper than normal on grass this year. It led me to predict Mertens would beat Sabalenka after watching Sabalenka's shaky performance against Raducanu from Henman Hill (I actually am much higher on Raducanu's potential than most people here, but the five service returns Sabalenka missed on set point at 6-5 in the first set were awful). Reality intruded, of course, although the stats say Mertens played well against Sabalenka in her straight sets loss I did not see a point of).

Normally, seven sets of tennis among six players I probably would take a pass on if they were playing on Tennis Channel during a regular event would be a crushing disappointment considering the amount I paid for the experience, but it actually was quite fun. My wife and son, neither of whom are big tennis fans, enjoyed it, too, and I found the Court 1 setting beautiful.

We tried to watch matches on the outer courts in the two hours before play started on Court 1, but we could not get in anywhere. The massive crowd from a day earlier were back again. Even finding a spot on Henman Hill was virtually impossible for the Raducanu-Sabalenka match. We were forced to move from the stairs on the side and ended up watching the final point of the first-set tiebreak from an angle under the screen that nearly gave me vertigo. We left after Sabalenka won the first set, but I followed the second set on my phone on the shuttle back to Wimbledon Village, hoping Raducanu could force a third set. It was not to be.

I've always heard how well organized Wimbledon is, and the gift shot experience after the Court 1 matches ended proved the point. The line must have had 80 people in front of me, but it moved at lightning pace because they had so many cashiers. Well done.