Wimbledon and "The Queue"

This morning, I woke up at 6:30am to go off to Queue for Wimbledon.  It should be noted that this could seem like a late time to get up to Queue (to those out there that know what i'm talking about) as some poeple (quite a few actually) set up tents and stay there overnight!  But be that as it may, I go off to the underground with about an hour long journey ahead of me.  That is, until the Tube had a power failure on the line to Wimbledon.  Could you think of a worse time during the year for that specific line?  There are only two weeks out of the year where THOUSANDs of people go to Wimbledon everyday, and the power failure had to happen then?!?! Well, as the Tube was no longer feasible means of travel, we were sent off in search of a series of buses.  And by we, I mean about 200 people on the same train as me.  This doesn't count the people on the trains before and after me.... Can you spell nightmare?  Well at any rate, after finally getting on the right buses and about an hour later, we find Wimbledon.  So now, the only obstacle is finding where to enter.  I find a steward, and ask them where to enter the Queue.  They tell me that the entrance to the Queue is in Carpark 10... and I''m next to Carpark 5..... crap.  So a mile down the road and much panicing later, I arrive at Carpark 10 to find a hoard.

Part of the Queue when I arrived. It was hard to capture the entire thing.

But we hurry towards the stewards and they inform us that they haven't reached capacity yet, so we should be in the clear! EXCELLENT!  We are given our Queue Cards and enter the gigantic serpentine line.  There is a reason that when one sees anything about the Wimbledon Queue, it is capitalized.  This is because the Queue is an adventure just by itself.  Apparently, Wimbledon is the only major tennis tournament where people queue up to enter.  When you enter "The Queue"  you are given a "Guidebook" on how to queue.  You also receive a Queue Card that informs you of your Number.  I was number 6247 out of the 7500 they were selling Grounds tickets to.   
You know those people I was mentioning earlier that bring tents and everything?  Well here is a photograph of about 50 tents that had already been set up as of about 10 or 11am, so they could queue for the next day. Now that is dedication.

The line of Tents

Advertisments during the Queue

After about 2 1/2 hours of being in the Queue in the park, our line finally moved!! We exited the park and continued back towards the entrance to the tournament grounds.  After about another 1/2 hour, we finally reached security, and were within sight of the entrance!!  After going through security, and entering the grounds, it about about 12:30, or in other words about 5 hours after I set off on my journey!  I then spent the next five hours happily wandering around Wimbledon, watching tennis, watching people, and just reflecting in the fact that I was actually there.

Nadia Petrova

This was the first match I watched of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova v. Nadia Petrova.  I didn't stay for the entire match, so I'm not quite sure who won in the end.







 And then after a stop in the giftshop before it got super busy and having a lovely lunch of some scones and the Wimbledon classic of Strawberries and Cream, I went off to indulge in some more brilliant tennis!

Guillermo Garcia-Lopez

One of the matches I watched for a while was that of Karol Beck v. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.  It was a pretty good competitive match.  So much so, that when Guillermo Garcia-Lopez finally lost, he smashed his racquet on the ground enough to essentially bend it 90 degrees on one side.  What happened to sportsmanship?  Needless to say, the racquet is no longer usable.....

Karol Beck

He had a wicked serve!

This was in warm-ups (obviously, because of the jacket), but this actually ended up being a really exciting competitve match with Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez & Sonchat Ratiwatana v. Sofia Arvidsson & Andreja Klepac.  One side would win one game and then the next one the other.  They usually also got to deuce.  Very exciting to watch!





All in all, I watched about 6 different matches!
Karol Beck v. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez
Julien Benneteau & Nicolas Mehut v. Lukas Lacko & Lukas Rosol
Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez & Sonchat Ratiwatana v. Sofia Arvidsson & Andreja Klepac
Marcel Granollers & Tommy Robredo v. Santiago Giraldo & Pere Riba
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova v. Nadia Petrova
Iveta Benesova & Barbora Zahlavova Strycova v. Dominika Cibulkova & Petra Kvitova

It was kind of a bummer that I didn't get to see any of the US players still in the running, but Serena Williams did walk right past me on her way back to the Clubhouse.  I was too much in shock, to react quickly enough to get a picture. :(

Tomorrow will be a relaxing day tomorrow! A sleep-in maybe and then off to see Bridesmaids with four other MOHOs!!
Cheers!
KM