Casual tennis fans need not apply

Wimbledon is not for the faint of heart. I left the house at about 3pm yesterday to make Wimbledon before 5pm so that I could get in line for the cheap after 5 tickets. I had heard that their would be a line up. I never expected what I got! Almost 2 1/2 hours waiting in the hot sun!!!

Wimbledon is a very popular event. It is the last sports event in London that has same day ticket sales. They have a ballot that you can apply to the year before for advance tickets - these tickets get you into the big courts - although you have no idea what matches you will be seeing until the day of. Every day during Wimbledon, they release 6000 extra tickets to the general public - these are the tickets you have to queue for. Queuing is taken very seriously, we were handed queue cards that assured our positions in line. Line jumpers will not be tolerated!! Wimbledon park has a capacity of 35 000 people. This means that when full they only let people in on a one in one out basis. Might explain the 2 1/2hr wait...

I finally did get into to Wimbledon. It was quite an exciting place - teeming with people. Serena Williams was playing on court 2 - with my ticket I was only allowed to stand in court 2. I headed over to the standing area and what did I find... another line. No way was I waiting in another line. I walked around a bit... peaked in on some other matches, then headed over to the Hill. The Hill is a big hill (obviously) with a big screen. They broadcast the big games on it. I watched Serena - she won, sipped on a Pimms - the drink of choice at Wimbledon, and then headed over to see if I could catch any other matches. The problem is that all the courts were full of people, so the best you could manage was standing over someone's shoulder trying to get a look.

I'm not sure if I would do Wimbledon again. Don't get me wrong, it was a great experience. But I'm not sure if it was worth the 2 1/2hr wait for me. I'm not that big of a tennis fan - I only really know the big names. The ambience was great, but then watching a match on a screen felt wrong given that I was at Wimbledon to see them live. So I don't think I would go back - unless of course someone has advance tickets they would like to give to me?!?