Wimbledon!

Last Friday, Greer, Caitlin & I met at 5am (I woke at 3:50am) to catch the first train from High Wycombe at 5:32am to go to Wimbledon! Caitlin & I had made a couple of yummy salad and mozzarella rolls the day before to take for lunch, plus snacks like peanuts (which we can't eat openly at school because of allergies amongst the girls), sultanas and apples. It sounds healthy when I write it like that...

As we walked to the station we were pretty excited - it was so light already, I was in shorts due to the nice weather the last couple of days, and we even saw the cute sight of a man dropping off glass milk bottles to people's front doors! We bought train tickets from the machine for the first time, since no-one was up that early to sell them to us. From Marylebone, we caught a train to Waterloo, then onto Wimbledon. Something I'd printed out which was supposed to show us the journey told me it'd take 28 minutes to Waterloo even though it was only about 4 stops. Luckily it didn't take nearly that long. At Wimbledon station there was a little stall set up where the man and woman inside called out to us 'going to the tennis?' then gave us the advice 'there's a good way to get there and a bad way: the bus is more expensive and doesn't get you to the back of the queue and the taxi is cheaper and gets you right at the end of the queue' so obviously we took the taxi (£2.50 each) after collecting some info from them.

The taxi ride was probably less than 10 minutes. We headed in the direction everyone was going and had our first glimpse of 'the queue'. So. Many. People. We followed directions to sit/stand in one line for over an hour, then we all moved and sat/stood in another line for a long time. Finally we started on the final movement towards the grounds, which was a long slow walk. Security checked our bags (luckily they didn't pull out the bigger of Greer's 2 Aussie flags as there was a size restriction) and then we finally got to the ticket sellers and bought our grounds passes! By the time we'd got in it was 11:30am and we'd arrived at 7:30am. Luckily it was beautiful and sunny most of that waiting time.

Games didn't start until 12 noon (that's weird, right? They start in the morning at the Aus Open, don't they?) so we looked at the Order of Play and then went and found the court where Hewitt/Luczak would be playing the second game, and where Aussie Jessica Moore was playing doubles in the first game. That was a pretty weak game all round and Moore & her partner lost. Casey Dellaqua and another Aussie were playing on the court behind so when the people in the row behind us vacated their seats, I moved back and had a view of both courts. Dellaqua's game was pretty bad too, I don't think I saw a rally the whole time I watched. The courts were really cute and intimate though, only 3 rows of seats on each side. You could see (and hear!) the crowd for centre court from where we were sitting. Oh how I wished I was part of it. Usually it's around January every year I get nostalgic about Tennis, when the Aus Open is on, but this year it was in June.

The Hewitt game was much better, the Germans they were playing against were really good, especially one's serve! The Aussie boys came out with their backwards caps of course, and it was really funny when they were letting each other know whose ball it was - 'yours mate' could be heard by everyone. We heard 'come on' a couple of times too, and not just from Hewie; the German got into it too. Unfortunately our boys lost that one too.

We'd already started eating our food during those 2 games, and then we went to check who was playing elsewhere. We bought our strawberries and cream which were yummm, and only £2.50 so not totally ridiculously expensive. We wandered around to court 3, the biggest one that ground pass holders can see, where Tomic was finishing his game from the day before, but there was even a queue there to get in and we had no chance.

We found the court where Sam Stosur was playing doubles against Jankovic, which was also a good game, and Stosur WON! These woman are so strong, just watching their serves, shots and muscles! Stosur's partner was really smiley and Sam even gave a little bit at one stage. The losers were also really gracious and friendly at the end. As we headed away from the court, Sam was signing autographs/taking photos and I just missed out! So shattered. Literally one girl caught her before she totally got away but I didn't want to be too harassing.

Anyway so then we checked out court 3 again, where Monfils was now playing but we were told we had pretty much no chance to get in. So we looked at the game schedule again and saw that there were some singles games on another court (I was kind of sick of doubles by this time). We queued again (pretty much my life on this day), and the weather got horrible and started raining. People started coming out from the court in ones and twos but there were 3 of us so no good. Then they covered the courts to keep them dry and eventually we got in but only to decide that that game was definitely not being finished that day. The guys who controlled who went in and out were from the fire brigade and I think they had to be there as part of work and were told nothing about whether the game was ever going to be restarted. So we waited for a bit once we got in, put the Aussie flags on to keep dry/warm and then headed back out, via the shop. The cashier looked at my flag and said 'you're not going to see Murray by any chance?'. Um, no. There is more to this flag than a Union Jack, lady!

On the way out of the grounds one of the workers told us we shouldn't have been let in with a flag that big, but whatcha gonna do. We caught a double-decker back to Wimbledon station, through Wimbledon town which looks quite cute, then caught the trains back. We were pretty tired by this stage and by the time we got back it was about 9:30pm and raining as we walked up the hill. Pretty much had a shower and went straight to bed at 10:30pm. Good day though.



All the gaps between Turkey and last Friday will hopefully be filled in before I head off for Summer, next Friday 8th July to Athens!