Game, Set, Match

Today concludes the best fortnight of tennis, Wimbledon. For those who know me, know that I love tennis, both watching and playing, and after watching Wimbledon for how many years on TV that getting the chance to go would be a dream come true.


Now to get tickets isn't as simple as going on Ticketmaster and paying a few quid to get the court you want, on the day that you want. Starting in August, you submit to a public ballot so as soon as we moved to London last fall and had our address; I submitted my ballot for tickets. In February, they start sending out vouchers to those who were lucky enough to get selected. This year, there was 40% more ballots submitted then in the past year (all due to a pesky Scot named Andy Murray) and unfortunately we didn't get selected for the ballot. There were two more options. There are a very limited amount of tickets released on Ticketmaster each day for those that have been returned, but the amount will depend on how many were returned for that day. I didn’t want to take the chance trying to get tickets and not being able to get any so our next option was queuing. For the first ten days of the tournament, 500 tickets are released the morning of for each of the show courts, Centre Court, Court 1 and Court 2


We left our flat at four in the morning on Thursday, got to Wimbledon Park and entered the queue at 4:30 a.m. Our queue cards were in the fourteen hundreds so there was no chance we would get Centre Court tickets but Andy Roddick was playing on Court 1 so I would be just as happy there. Unfortunately we weren't that lucky and ended up with Court 2 tickets, missing Court 1 by about a half hour. Nonetheless, the schedule of play for Court 2 was pretty good and I was happy to be at Wimbledon.

Now the grounds open at 10:30 but the matches don't start until noon so we wandered around checking out the gift shops and getting my first strawberries and cream. Nummy. Finally the matches were ready to begin.


During the day on Court 2, we saw Tomas Berdych versus Paul-Henri Mathieu, Dinara Safina versus Rossana De Los Rios, Juan Carlos Ferrero versus Fabrice Santoro and Jelena Jankovic versus Iveta Benesova. During the day we also walked around a bit and watched James Blake and Mardy Fish playing doubles, Sam Querrey and Robert Kendrick playing doubles, Ana Ivanovic and Stanislas Warinka.

Berdych

Safina

Ferrero

Jankovic
Blake & Fish

Ivanovic

On our way out on Thursday night, we were toying with the idea of going back to our flat, getting our tent and camping out to try and get Centre Court tickets. However, when we talked to the Steward, he said that there were already well over 500 people camping so that idea was out. On Friday, we slept in a little bit before heading out to the park a little after 5:00a.m. We ended up being in the 2800s in the queue that day but were happy with just getting grounds passes. Our plan was to go straight to the resale line and wait to get Centre Court tickets. When people leave the show courts, they are asked to turn in their tickets to be resold, with the proceeds going to charity, so we figured if we got to the front of the line, we would have a good chance at getting tickets earlier in the day. Roger Federer was playing first that day so I was hoping that we would catch a little bit of his match. There was a single ticket that became available during the Federer match for the 4th row but I decided against ditching Pat and waiting for a pair of tickets. Finally at 3:30, after the Federer match had ended and after 10 hours of queuing, we got resale tickets for Centre Court.

We got in as soon as possible and were able to catch the entire Victoria Azarenka/Sorana Cirstea and Novak Djokovic/Mardy Fish match. We had great seats, just to the left of the Royal Box and only three or four rows up! It was incredible to be watching tennis on Centre Court! Another great day at Wimbledon!

Cirstea v. Azarenka
Cirstea

Djokovic v. Fish

Djokovic

Now as I said before, each day, there are a limited amount of tickets released on Ticketmaster that people have returned. But for the final four days, they also release the Centre Court tickets the people queued for for the first ten days. Thursday night, we decided to try our luck to see if we could get tickets for the Men's semi-finals on Friday. The tickets were released at 8:30p.m. and somehow at 8:42 we got two tickets! I was ecstatic! Not only would I get to see Roger Federer play but Andy Roddick as well!

Federer played Tommy Haas in the first match of the day and it was a good match to watch. Haas played well but as always, Federer outplayed him and won in three sets. It still amazes me how effortless Federer can hit outstanding shots!

The highlight of my day was watching Andy Roddick play Andy Murray. For the last month, all the papers have talked about is Andy Murray and how he was going to win Wimbledon and be the first Brit to do so for 70 odd years. Needless to say, the entire crowd was cheering for Murray with a few random “Go Roddick” in there. For those who weren’t able to watch the match, go watch the highlights. It was a great match one of the most exciting that I’ve watched. I was thrilled to be able to cheer for Andy Roddick as the underdog and watch him win in four sets.

Now onto watching the men’s final today and hoping that Roddick will defeat Federer! I know, it’s a long shot but I’ll be once again cheering for the underdog!