Lucky one
Monday, June 27th, 2005When I was growing up, I remember sitting in front of the TV with my family around this time of year watching the tennis greats play their hearts out on the courts of Wimbledon. I was a huge Stefan Edberg fan (for obvious reasons, anyone who has taken one look at him would have to agree) and my brother was in love with Steffi Graff (I still think she has a big nose). Anyway, a few of us hopped on the train on Saturday afternoon to try our luck at getting tickets to the big tournament. We alighted at Southfields station (I still don’t know what the hell that means…who says alighted???). After stopping off to get a bite to eat, we took a bus to the grounds. As we got closer, we saw the line to get in…one mile, two miles, it kept on going! Needless to say, we weren’t too optimistic about our chances. Luckily it was close to 6pm, and a lot of people were leaving. We picked up our queue cards, joined the crowd, and shockingly made it in within 30 minutes! The great thing about Wimbledon is that they reserve a certain number of tickets every day for the general public. So we got Groud Passes that let us go any of courts 3-19. We started racing around from court to court, not knowing any better, and feeling rather euphoric just by the fact that we made it in…kind of like the flea that was circling everyone’s heads on the train today. Our first attempt at seeing some tennis was a visit to Court 11 to watch teenage Indian sensation Sania Mirza play. Of course, we get to the court to find half of India there. It was insane. Her matched just finished…and even though she’s relatively new on the tour, she was being mobbed like she was Elvis! So we made our way to a few other courts, saw some junior matches, and then happened to peer into a court where #15 seed Coria was playing. We caught the match at the beginning of the 5th set, and watched it through a two inch hole in the wooden slats on the far side of the court! Of course, at the time we were thinking, this is what we paid to get in to see? It was a great 5th set though and he ended up winning. Afterwards, we made our way over to Henman Hill to watch the rest of the Murray match on the big screen TV. As the only remaining Brit in the tournament, England was hoping for a miracle. Alas, the 19 yr old couldn’t pull it off, and we had to decide our next course of action. We happened to be sitting near a line of some sort. Luckily an elderly British woman overheard us and told us it was the line for resold tickets that give you access to center court, and courts 1 & 2. She said "I hear a rumor that Serena Williams is playing on Court 2". Before she could finish her sentence we bolted for the line, and before we knew it we were watching her play the second set of her match! That was definitely worth it. She didn’t look too good though,and lost in straight sets. We did see her dad and Venus sitting in the stands. It was close to 9:30PM by the time we were done so we went to center court to take a look around. Being on the center court of Wimbledon is a very humbling experience…we saw the Royal Box, the player’s entrance, the big Wimbledon logos. It’s a surprisingly small stadium, I doubt there was a bad seat in the house. Needless to say, I was thrilled with my experience and would definitely recommend going!