Wimbly 2007Monday 25th June
Woke up: 1030am
On monday, myself and Euan had decide to get up later and check the forecast, as it was meant to be a total washout from the day before. We couldn't be bothered getting up and queuing for ground passes at 5am, especially as Euan had only arrived at 1am and I was still up.
So we walked from the hotel, got breakfast (for £2.50!!! ) at Sainsbury's and then walked the 40 minute walk to the grounds. Only one queue was open, on the North side (Southfields) and we walked straight in. No queuing at all.... Fantastic for us. We got our ground passes and headed for court 13 and waited for play to start.
Gonzalev v Ginepri. At the end of the first set, we moved down to the 3rd row as people started to leave and were sat there for the rest of the match. Fantastic 4 setter with a lot of long rallies and big hitting.
Shortly after this, we headed for a wander around the rest of the outside courts, before it started to rain! boooo! We met up with Cate and Mark on the Hill, and I have no idea who we saw before it started raining, if anyone....
Around about 5pm, we headed for the back of Henman Hill, planning on sitting there to watch Tim if/when he came back on. However, we noticed the Ticket re-sale queue was rather short, and we managed to get centre court tickets for £5! (going to charity of course). We couldn't believe that there was no queue here again!
Went into centre court, hardly believing our luck, considering we weren't even going to come today! What happens next?
Henman v Moya. Best match I have ever seen in my life in terms of enjoyment value. Quality of tennis is the 3rd set in particular was superb. Amazing getting to see Tim close up, in really good seats on the diagonal of the court. Best view by far, and shall be booking any DC tickets in the future with this in mind!
They called light at 9.18pm and we went home.
Tuesday 26th June
Today was Court 1 tickets for us. The day we were meant to go to. And it turned out to be sunny all day I think. The list of players I saw grows massively today. We once again had brekkie at Sainsbury's and this time, got the bus, before walking the last bit.... still got a little lost but it's al an adventure. In the grounds at around 11.30am. We headed to the practice courts to see who was about, and the first person to catch our eye was
Daniela Hantuchova. Shortly followed by miss Hingis and a certain Rafael Nadal....
I persuaded Euan to go watch Hantuchova first, so we got front row seats on court 10 i think...... Daniela won the first set 6-0..... so we left after that, because it clearly wasn't about the tennis
Went to see a small bit of
Elena v Srebotnik then
Verdasco v Reynolds playing next for one set (Fernando has one of the biggest forehands EVER), before going on to court 1 for the start of play and the first match,
James Blake v Igor Andreev. Saw the first set and a bit, before going out to the hill, to stir up the emotions, and watch TIM winning! I spotted two bench seats right at the front, and we got there just before it started getting busy. Immense stuff!
After Henman's win, we headed back into Court 1 to see
Hewitt v Bloomfield which was quite a good match, Bloomers did well, but Hewitt was a cut above. And we stayed on Court 1 for
Sharapova v Chan The first set was pretty straight forward, but the second was a lot tighter.
We left court 1 to look for a good match to watch, and settled on
Santoro v Karlovic. This was an absolute belter of a game. We joined it just going into the tiebreak of the 3rd set. Santoro is tiny, and Karlovic is huge! It was a classic match up. Santoro couldn't get more than 2 points on Karlovic's serve, so he had to rely on the tiebreaks. It went to a 5th, and Santoro saved break points by LOBBING Karlovic. Then he won the match in the next game, with his first break points and ANOTHER LOB over the 6 foot 10 inch Croatian. Unreal. It was just fantastic and a total bonus, especially since we got court side seats. It changes the perspective entirely.
After all this, there was still time to catch the last set of
Kuznetsova v Vakulenko before heading home.
Just before we went into court 1 however, Euan got a call to say a couple of guys coudln't make it down on Wednesday because the trains were being stopped by the floods. So they were ofering us the tickets to court 1!
Wednesday 27th June
Got up at 8am today, as it was check out day. We faced an anxious wait for the tickets, sent by special delivery. WE left our luggage, got some breakfast and waited.... They arrived at 11.30am!
We got a taxi out to wimbly, arriving just for play starting, and first off, went to see the first 4 games or so of
Vaidisova v Knapp and then as Euan had never seen her before, I took him up to Court 18 to see
Ivanovic v Czink. She was already 5-0 up in the first, and subsequently went on to take it, before being broken in the second set and then it rained!
It was long however, before they announced play starting, and we headed for no 1 court once again to watch
Serena Williams v Alicia Molik. Molik is rather hot so we wanted her to win
Serena looked awfully tired and worn out and seemed a bit sluggish, but she overpowered Alicia, and indeed Alicia made a few too many errors to merit the win. Were really hoping it would go to a 3 set, but Serena held on to close it out in two.
Next up, the legend of the game....
Roger Federer. I'd never seen him play live before and it was definately an event, especially since by now, we were supposed to be at home by now
I sat, transfixed, by this genius taking on the unfortunate
Juan Martin Del Potro, (unfortunate in that he had to play federer in the 2nd round) Federer was missing a lot of shots, but anytime he came under pressure, he would create moments of brilliance that just took your breath away and made you wonder.... "how?" His backhand is just sublime, and his anticipation of where the ball is going is unreal. I can't see anyone beating him here for many years, he's just a cut above everyone on grass. It truly was a marvel to watch.
After this as we all know, it rains. Me and Euan decided to stand in the queue for resale tickets to try and get centre tickets..... just in case.... we got them, doing out bit for charity, IN THE FRONT ROW!!!
Unfortunately, we only got pictures of a covered court, but it was a good feeling to be 3 feet away from the grass. We did see the covers come off briefly, only for them to go back on again 30 seconds later.
But at the end of the day, our luck was just unreal the last 3 days, and to have seen so many top top players, playing some really good matches, was beyond our wildest dreams. People struggle to get one day on showcourts, and we got 3.
The 12 hour journey home was so worth it.
