I got up early on Monday to go to Wimbledon. I'm certainly not much of a tennis fan, but I always liked Wimbledon. Pete Sampras, start of summer, and I like sports played on grass. In The Ultimate Top-Ten Rankings of the Best in Sports, Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo ranked Wimbledon number 7 on his list of the Top-Ten Sports Venues of All Time. (By the way, I have the book signed by both Mad Dog and Mike Francesa. I miss Mike and the Mad Dog. I can't believe it's been five years.) With this Wimbledon trip, I've now been to six of his top ten venues: Oriole Park (number 9), Wimbledon, Fenway Park (number 6), Notre Dame Stadium (number 4), Madison Square Garden (number 3), and old Yankee Stadium (number 1). In case you're wondering, the ones I haven't been to are Cameron Indoor Stadium (number 10), the Orange Bowl (number 8), Augusta National (number 5), and Lambeau Field (number 2). Cameron Indoor would be great. Maybe I'll get there for a Notre Dame-Duke game now that we're in the ACC. I'm too late on the Orange Bowl, but maybe I'll get to the Rose Bowl someday. I would go to Augusta National if I was in the area at the same time the Masters was going on (like I did for Wimbledon, although getting to Wimbledon was much higher on my list than getting to the Masters). And Lambeau Field is the only NFL stadium that I would make a point of going to. I'll have to go some season when the Packers have a home game the day before Columbus Day (they're in Baltimore this year).
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| Me at Court 18 |
Anyway, I did some research on tickets. The prices on Stubhub were outrageously high. So I went to find out if I could just get tickets from Ticketmaster or something. Nope. Apparently there's some kind of lottery system (they call it a ballot). But the good news is you can get tickets the day of the event by getting on the queue. You just have to get there really early if you want to be in when the matches start at 11:30. They sell tickets for Centre Court, Court 1, Court 2, and grounds passes. The prices vary by day and I went on the most expensive day. Centre Court is the most expensive and grounds passes are the cheapest. With a grounds pass, you can walk around and get into all the courts except for Centre Court, Court 1, and Court 2. People camp out overnight to be at the beginning of the queue get tickets for Centre Court or Court 1.
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| The queue at Wimbledon |
I got on the queue a little before 7:00 in the morning. It reminded me a little bit of waiting to get in at Boardy Barn, but with less drinking. They don't let anybody in until 10:30 (I think), so I didn't move for a while. But I enjoyed it. It was relaxing to sit in the grass with great weather and just listen to music and read. Eventually, I bought a grounds pass for 20 pounds and got in a little before noon. I got to see about seven hours of tennis for 20 pounds. Not bad. When I got in, I walked around for a little bit. I didn't really know where to go, so I just walked around and watched parts of matches where there was room to stand near one of the smaller courts. After doing that for about 45 minutes, I got fish and chips for lunch. Then I made my way to Court 18. If you ever go to Wimbledon and get a grounds pass, I strongly recommend going to Court 18. After the three biggest courts, the next big courts are Court 3, Court 12, Court 14, and Court 18. So you can get some good matches on any of those courts. The good thing about Court 18 is that there's plenty of room to stand. So you can wait on the queue for Court 3, 12, 14, or wherever else or you can stand and watch at Court 18. So I watched the end of one match at Court 18. As I was about to leave, they announced that the next match was going to be Sloane Stephens and Monica Puig. I knew Sloane Stephens was American, so I decided to stay (I found out later that Puig is Puerto Rican). I stood for the first set, which Puig won. Then I sat down and Stephens won the next two sets to win the match.
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| Sloane Stephens vs. Monica Puig |
After that, I had a Magners, but apparently I missed out on Pimms (alcohol and lemonade), which is a big thing at Wimbledon. Then I went to Court 3 and watched a mixed doubles match. I had to wait about 20 minutes to get in, but then one match ended and a lot of people left. I was rooting for the two Brits in the match I saw, but they lost in three sets. Then I went to Court 12 and watched the first set of another mixed doubles match. After that, I walked around for a little bit and then I was ready to leave. I had been there for over 12 hours and spent about 7 of those hours watching tennis.
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| Mixed doubles on Court 3 |
It was definitely worth going to Wimbledon. I enjoyed it, but I have a couple of suggestions for making it better (I'm sure big tennis fans will probably hate these suggestions). First, what's the deal with the scoring for the games? I understand how it works, but it makes no sense. It should just be that each game is played to four (instead of this 15, 30, 40, game nonsense) and you have to win by two. Second, I just find the whole atmosphere weird. For example, I think there was some home court advantage for Andy Murray, but it should be a much bigger home court advantage. None of this polite applauding when Murray's opponent gets a point. They should boo whoever Andy Murray is playing. And why does it have to be so quiet when they're playing? When Andy Murray's opponent is serving, fans should go nuts like when the road team is on offense in a college football game.
Anyway, I probably won't ever get to Wimbledon again, but if I ever go to England again, I would definitely try to schedule that trip so that I could get back to Wimbledon. If it's the only time I ever get to Wimbledon, it was fun. I might have to go to the US Open at the end of the summer to compare.
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