Strawberries and cream...
...at wimbledon is not really all that it's cracked up to be. Admittedly, the strawberries were very nice, but there were only about 10 of them and the cream was sort of a white watery affair (albeit tasty) and served in unenvironmentally friendly styrofoam cups. Fortunately, our strawberries and cream were gratis courtesy of HSBC. (They were offering free vouchers on presentation of your HSBC debit card).
Saturday was Wimbledon day. It was surprisingly easy to get out of bed at 4.30am (I think the fact that it was already light helped alot) and the streets were already lively with last night's revelers as well as early morning travelers. We caught the first tube of the day and then jumped out of the train because everyone else did at Southfields station, rather than the more intuitive Wimbledon Park, and rushed with the crowd to the queuing area.
It was a fine sunny morning and time passed quickly as we sat on the grass and read the paper. We were handed our queuing cards (we were numbers 3416 and 3417 in the queue), "A Guide to Queuing for the Championships" (a 40 page guide about the dos and don'ts of queuing) and a "I've Been In the Queue to See the 2008 Wimbledon Tennis Championships" sticker. At 9.15am the queue started moving and at 11.30am, we had finally bought our tickets and made it into the grounds!
Modern art outside the gates (made out of grass seedlings)
Courtside at last.
Lucky for us, we went to Wimbledon with Dave the tennis guru who authoritatively advised us to watch Court 11. The first match, between Miss Tanasugarn from Thailand and Miss Erakovic from NZ, was an effortful 3 setter and very enjoyable. However, the real deal was the next match between Dinara Safina, the giant little sister of Marat Safin and runner up in the French Open, and newcomer Israeli Shahar Peer, in a marathon 3+ hour affair. In the beginning, I was going for Peer, simply because she was so much smaller than Safina and looked to be the underdog. But after winning the first set and leading by a fair margin the second, it was time to turn my attentions to Safina who dug in and won the second set in a tie breaker. In the end, Safina cramped up and Peer eventually won the third 8-6. Seriously, one of the best tennis games ever.
After sitting in the one court for over 5 hours, it was time to wander around the grounds and check out Henman Hill. Henman Hill wasn't very exciting, so we went to watch a mixed doubles match where one of the women players was an australian. and then it was time to go home.
Saturday was Wimbledon day. It was surprisingly easy to get out of bed at 4.30am (I think the fact that it was already light helped alot) and the streets were already lively with last night's revelers as well as early morning travelers. We caught the first tube of the day and then jumped out of the train because everyone else did at Southfields station, rather than the more intuitive Wimbledon Park, and rushed with the crowd to the queuing area.
It was a fine sunny morning and time passed quickly as we sat on the grass and read the paper. We were handed our queuing cards (we were numbers 3416 and 3417 in the queue), "A Guide to Queuing for the Championships" (a 40 page guide about the dos and don'ts of queuing) and a "I've Been In the Queue to See the 2008 Wimbledon Tennis Championships" sticker. At 9.15am the queue started moving and at 11.30am, we had finally bought our tickets and made it into the grounds!Modern art outside the gates (made out of grass seedlings)
Courtside at last.
Lucky for us, we went to Wimbledon with Dave the tennis guru who authoritatively advised us to watch Court 11. The first match, between Miss Tanasugarn from Thailand and Miss Erakovic from NZ, was an effortful 3 setter and very enjoyable. However, the real deal was the next match between Dinara Safina, the giant little sister of Marat Safin and runner up in the French Open, and newcomer Israeli Shahar Peer, in a marathon 3+ hour affair. In the beginning, I was going for Peer, simply because she was so much smaller than Safina and looked to be the underdog. But after winning the first set and leading by a fair margin the second, it was time to turn my attentions to Safina who dug in and won the second set in a tie breaker. In the end, Safina cramped up and Peer eventually won the third 8-6. Seriously, one of the best tennis games ever.
After sitting in the one court for over 5 hours, it was time to wander around the grounds and check out Henman Hill. Henman Hill wasn't very exciting, so we went to watch a mixed doubles match where one of the women players was an australian. and then it was time to go home.
posted by Bek at
5:10 am
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