Wimbledon Tennis Championships 2008
by matt @ 12:38 pm. Blogged under Sport
Since my last trip to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in 2006 the old street queuing system has been replaced with a new staggered queuing system at Wimbledon Park Golf Club. This means that if you get the bus from Wimbledon station (£3.50 return) you’re in for quite a walk away from the ground again before you can even find the end of the queue. The reason behind this change, other than improved road safety, is that all the overnight tent dwellers seeking the limited court tickets have been moved to Wimbledon Park Golf Club. Clearly they need to be first in the queue, so everybody else has to go and queue up behind them before being led in waves down through the golf course, through security and over the road bridge to the kiosks.
My mother and I got off the bus at Southfields at around 6:30am and we probably joined the end of the queue by about 6.45am - positions 1,811 and 1,812; queing for around three hours before we actually purchased ground tickets. We were only just short of being offered wrist bands to be able to purchase tickets for number two court. I’d be tempted to take a taxi next time instead because it would have saved around fifteen minutes of walking after getting off the bus.
The old court number 13 is being built upon with the all NEW ‘number 2′ court, visitors to Wimbledon this year will find that they can enter the viewing gallery to see the building progress. Without the seats in place I thought it resembled some kind of ancient amphitheatre - I took a few photos and added them to my album.
With only outer court ground passes whenever I’ve attended, I always liked court 13 as a good place to see some seeded players in the first few days of the Championships. This year court number 11 was a good alternative, we watched both Amelie Mauresmo and Marion Bartoli win their respective matches on that court before watching some mens singles over on court 17 - Thomaz Bellucci vs Simon Stadler, not one we stayed to see the end of because by 6pm I was nearly asleep so we headed home.
Technorati Tags: wimbledon 2008, wimbledon tennis
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