Quiet, please.

When I told people in my office I was heading to Wimbledon for the day, they asked if I really liked tennis.  I don’t think ‘not really’ was the answer they expected.  Well, it’s true.  I don’t LOVE tennis.  I do really enjoy sports (you know, watching them, not playing…because who really wants to get hot & sweaty?) and given the chance to watch people at the pinnacle of their sport, live – I wouldn’t pass that up.  Plus, we’d been having some amazing weather & I wasn’t going to miss the three days of summer this year.

So you’re saying that you decided to go to a major sporting event that people plan for years to attend just two days before?  How in the world did you get tickets?  Did you have to pay a fortune to scalpers?

Haha.  No.  Believe me – I want to see everything I possibly can, but I am my father’s daughter & that makes me cheap frugal.

Here’s how the crazy ticket system works over here.

You can apply for tickets 6-10 months before the tournament through the public ballot.  There are just a couple of rules on applying…from the website:

In order to apply for tickets for The Championships, you need to fill in a Public Ballot application form:

• To obtain an application form, send in a stamped, self-addressed envelope from 1 August 2013 to: AELTC, P.O. BOX 98, London SW19 5AE by 15 December 2013. Ballot forms for 2014 are not yet available.
• Only one application per household. Don't ask for more than one form: we will void your applications.
• If you do not send in a stamped, self-addressed envelope, you will not receive a form. No letter is required.
• There is a separate ballot for wheelchair spaces so please make sure you write clearly 'WHEELCHAIR' on both the outer and on your return envelope.
• Non-UK residents should send in an International Reply Coupon instead of a stamp. If your post office does not provide these, please simply send your self-addressed envelope.
• The stamped, self-addressed envelope should have your return address and should be the type 'DL' which is approximately 110mm x 220 mm (4 1/4" x 8 5/8")
• It will greatly assist us in processing your request if you send the correct size of envelope (and self-seal if possible, rather than gummed).
• Requests postmarked after 15 December 2013 will NOT be processed.

Once you receive the application form, you have to fill it out by 31 December and send it in.  If you then are lucky enough to get tickets you have 2 weeks from the time of notification (which could be anytime from February to three weeks before the tournament starts) to purchase your tickets.  To say the least, it’s intense.

However, they also reserve around 5,000 tickets that you can buy on the day of … if you’re willing to stand in line.

As Wimbledon had been going on for the better part of a week already and we didn’t have tickets, we suddenly became willing to stand in the queue.

So at 6:40, we headed to the train and made it to the back of the queue at 7:41.  How do you know it’s the back of the queue?  They have a very large flag!

When you join the queue, you are given a queue card with strict instructions to stay in your spot.  You have to stay in order to be let through the gate.

If you’re in the queue, there are rules.  A book of them.

Only the British would publish a 20 page booklet on how to stand in a line.

You could tell that there were some experienced professionals at this whole queuing thing.  A group of 4 women came in behind us, immediately put down their picnic blanket, popped a bottle of champagne, assembled their plastic champagne flutes, opened a package of strawberries and toasted their girls’ day out.  I bet they had a pretty fun outing.  The rest of us looked something like this…

After about 2 ½ hours of standing in line, a little bit of rain, we made it to the ticket booth.  You can buy Centre Court, Court 1 and Court 2 tickets all of which also give you grounds admission to visit the other 15 or so courts plus watch the prime courts on the jumbotrons.  Obviously the prime court tickets go first, so at nearly 3,000 back in the line, we didn’t think we had a chance at getting any.  However, the booth we walked up to had two Court 2 tickets left.  So in a spur of the minute decision, we bought them.

So on we went. 

For a spur of the minute decision, we had amazing seats.  We were behind the umpire, about 4 rows back and just three seats off the net line.

I can’t tell you the names of the people we watched.  Our court had all doubles matches.  Two mixed doubles and two women’s doubles.  But I can tell you it was some of the best tennis I’ve ever seen.  (Yes, I realize that you would hope it’s the best I’ve ever seen, when my comparison is the Marble Falls High School Varsity squad.  You know what I meant.)

During a break on our court, we stopped to eat our strawberries & cream.  I’d prove it with a picture, but after taking one of the booth, we ate them all before we remembered we didn’t take a picture of us eating any.  My attempts to purchase another bowl (totally for the photo op & not at all because I wanted them) fell on Adam’s deaf ears.

Our matches ended about mid way through Andy Murray’s quarterfinal match against Fernando Verdasco.  We went and sat on Henman Hill.  ‘Sat’ is a term that I use loosely.  As the hill looked something like this three sets into the match.

Henman Hill is the large open air area with the main jumbotron in the park.  And as it’s on a hill, it has a sense of built in stadium seating for your picnic blanket.  It was named after Tim Henman, a British tennis player popular in the early 2000’s.  People have been informally calling the space Murray Mound now that Andy has become more popular.  Guess time will tell…

Andy struggled through the first two sets and most of the third before finally turning it around to win in five (4-6, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4, 7-5).  I like to think he knew when I sat down to focus on his match.