Thursday 25 June 2009
Highlights: The Wimbledon Tennis Championship

Today was the big day. I have wanted to go to Wimbledon since I was 12.  Today was a chance to correct that but without a ticket it was always going to be interesting.  So I got up at 7 am and headed out via the Tube. I got to the car park around 8 am and the Steward gave me a queue pass saying I was number 7,725, and telling me I should get in today.

At around 10.30 am the line started moving, passing those how were queuing for tomorrow’s centre court in their tents it took about 1 hr 30 minutes to actually get into the ground after passing security. The good thing is they handed out free water. The queue system is very English, no one pushed and everyone seemed to be happy sitting on the grass waiting to get in. I just watched South Park on my PMP and talked to a couple of Aussies in the line it cost  £20 for a ground pass (about $42 AUD) which get you everything but Centre Court, and Courts 1 and 2.

I headed straight to Court 18 to watch Sam Stouser play Tajana Malek. I had to stand watching from above the court, the first set I had restricted views but an American moved and i could then see 95% of the action from that point on. Sam played terrible, hitting heaps of balls out but she still somehow won 4-6, 7-6 and 6-4. In the 2nd set Australians supporters started leaving when she was down 2-4 (and later 0-4 in the tie break) to go watch Hewitt on the big screen. Even in the last set Sam was down 1-4 but still won.

I also watched:

• Ana Ivanovic beat Sara Erani 7-5, 6-1
• David Ferrer beat Fabio Fognini 6-2, 6-2, 6-3

After that I walked around historic Wimbledon watching matches here and there.  I watched Chris Guccione serve super fast, I visited the vendor displays (very similar to Australia Open) and I watched the locals go crazy over Andy Murray the last UK player.  I found it interesting that they don’t start matches until noon and then they go to really later, with lots of matches starting after 5 pm with some matches finishing after 8 pm. I really enjoyed my Wimbledon experience, getting up early and queuing for a few hours was worth it.