Not realizing how late it was in the tournament bunch of us packed our bags, bought a tarp, stopped at Sainsbury’s and headed to camp out for tickets to Wimbledon. We got there at noon to find that we were the first people in the queue, and would be the only people there until around 7 pm that day. We lost two after a few hours, they decided sleeping on the sidewalk just wasn’t worth it, but those of us who are tennis fans wanted to stay the whole time. While in line people going into and leaving were looking at us like we were nuts! The people that worked at Wimbledon sent special staff over to check on us and make sure we were all right. To be honest, I think I might have met some of the friendliest people while waiting in the queue. They would all stop to talk to us, ask if we needed anything, it was great.
Slowly the temperature began to drop, and the rain started. At one point they had handed us tickets that said “I’ve queued at Wimbledon” but these stickers suddenly began to say “I’ve queued in the rain at Wimbledon.” Other people had started to line up behind us, but they were experienced and had brought tarps. All we had was one tarp which we were allowed to put up an hour after all matches had ended. 2 rolls of duct tape, 2 boxes of garbage bags, and probably 40 heavy rocks later, we had constructed what could be considered a shelter. At this point we were freezing and thank god we had made friends with a bunch of 18 year old boys behind us who had a big tent because they let us cram in there for a while. When it came time to try to sleep, we all headed back to our sad little tent and crammed in like sardines, cold and miserable, with the wind blowing hard.
6am rolled around and the rain had stopped and it was time to get our queue cards! These would be our place-holders to show how long we had been in line. I asked nicely and the man handed me the first card in the pile, 00001! I was so happy! We eventually started moving towards the courts, and at 9am they opened the gates it was a free-for-all to get to the turnstiles. We got fourth row seats on Court 1…absolutely amazing. When we walked into the court my jaw dropped at how close our seats were.
The first match was Djokovic verses Baghdatis, and I immediately took to Baghdatis. He had a huge following there, and they would chant “Marcos- Bag-Dat-is!” the whole time it was great. They wound up playing a 5 hour match, I have never seen anything like it. The sportsmanship each player displayed was wonderful, they were gracious and even joked around. At one point a ball boy hurt himself and Baghdatis helped him walked off the court! They were both very scrappy players, diving for every ball, which on grass courts is hard because you move slower. In the end it was so close that either player could have won, but Djokovic wound up winning the match.
Next was Roddick playing Gasquet, which I have to say was not as good as the first match. Roddick is all about his serve, and he doesn’t dive for the ball the way other players do. He is just too big to play tennis, he can’t do it. I think their match lasted 3 or 4 hours with Gasquet coming back in the third set to beat Roddick 3 in a row.
At the end of the day I was absolutely exhausted and we got stuck on the tube for half an hour which did not help. Wimbledon was a wonderful experience, I think I would return to London just to stay and watch matches for a few days. I’ve loved everything here so far but these might have been two of my favorite days ever.
(Pictures are of Jill, Jillian, Eric and I in front of the queue, our pathetic attempt at shelter (yes, we actually all slept in there!) and also my new boyfriend Marcos Baghdatis. I didn’t even zoom this picture we were that close to all the players. I love Wimbledon!)
No comments:
Post a Comment