Tennisnet reader Judith Dombrowski was live in Wimbledon in 2018 – and wrote down her experiences for you!
Wimbledon 2018 is coming to an end, only the men’s final is on Sunday. Meanwhile I’m back home on my sofa in Osnabrück watching the matches on TV, but a funny, slightly excited feeling remains when I see the Centre Court on the screen. “Look,” says Ina, my roommate and best friend, “look, we were sitting right there!”
And it hasn’t been a week. From Wednesday evening in the first week of the tournament to Monday evening of the legendary “Manic Monday”, Ina and I participated in this year’s tournament on Church Road.
It wasn’t our first year at Wimbledon. To be in Wimbledon once live – a dream of mine for a long time, myself an enthusiastic tennis player and tennis fan since I was eleven years old. Last year was the first time and we were equipped with tents and sleeping bags in the legendary Wimbledon cue. Unfortunately, the two days last year were far too short, not enough for the Centre Court. But in general we were so enthusiastic about the experience that it was already clear to us last summer: we will come back in 2018 – and we will come longer.
So it’s Wednesday night in the first week of the tournament and Ina and I pitch our little two-man tent in the cue for the first time. In Wimbledon it works like this: You reach the cue area, which is nothing more than a large meadow with ten rows. At the side there are some food stalls and sanitary facilities (but no showers, last year they still existed!). There you first go to the nice stewards in the yellow west and get your cue card. There’s a number on it. On Wednesday evening we get the numbers 805 and 806, so we are the 805th and 806th person in line for next Thursday. You’re told where to pitch your tent. Then you will find yourself on a dignified camping holiday. You can play ball games on the meadow, go for a walk at sunset in the adjacent Wimbledon Park at the lake and play cards. Of course there is also the opportunity to talk to tennis fans from all over the world.
The next morning we leave early: At 6 o’clock at the latest the stewards walk through the rows and wake up. Now it’s time to pack things up or move the tent if you decide to skip another day and get an even better number for the next tournament day. On Thursday morning, however, we as Sascha Zverev fans know that we are going to Court No. 1, so the tent has to be packed up and handed over quickly. Five pounds is paid for the storage of a tent during the day, one pound for each additional piece of luggage. The use of the entire campsite is completely free of charge.
Around 6.30 am the stewards start to line up the crowds. By this time 3,000 to 4,000 people are usually already queuing up, most of them coming in the morning with the first subways. Around 7 o’clock the snake starts moving. Cue card no. 1 first, all in the correct order. This sequence is checked at several points and cannot be circumvented. At 7.30 o’clock it gets really exciting. Starting with queue card no. 1, the “wristbands” are issued. There are 500 tapes for the Centre Court, 500 tapes for Court No. 1 and 500 tapes for Court No. 2. According to this, everyone from No. 1 to 500 has the complete free choice of which court they want to watch. The rest gets what’s left.
However, since the great Roger Federer is not playing on our first Thursday, many fans have left or opted for a court other than the Centre Court, where Nadal and British local heroes Edmund and Konta are scheduled for that day. So it comes that with our numbers 805 and 806 we even have the possibility to choose the Centre Court. We briefly exchange views… Maybe Nadal would prefer to? No, our decision is final: We will choose court number one and support Sasha.
The tapes will go through security at 8:30 a.m. It is worth mentioning that Wimbledon has the nicest and most user-friendly rules I have ever seen at a big event: All food and drinks are allowed. Per person, even half a litre of alcohol can be taken off-road privately. At 9.30 o’clock it goes then to the cashes and by showing the host volume one buys its ticket for the respective court. The “Queuer” are treated particularly well: We get tickets in the 4 best blocks, the first rows right on the court. We’re on line six. We did it! We’re in shortly before 10:00.
First we decide for the second round match for Angie Kerber on place No. 12, because with our ticket we are now allowed on all courts, except the Centre Court and Court No. 2.
There were very few German voices still in the cue, here you can meet them all at Angie’s. In front of us sits a whole “football team” with German fans, which Angie screams loudly into the third round. They even get a ball as a thank you at the end of Angie. Our next stop is Showman Nick Kyrgios on Court No. 3, and this match also lives up to our expectations: Nick shuffles about the place in the position of the boys who used to sit in the back of the bus and whom one preferred to avoid, discusses with the referee, laughs at oneself and the opponent, unpacks one or the other tweener and the atmosphere on the court is great.
After this match we finally take our seats on court 1, see the victory of Simona Halep and keep our fingers crossed that del Potro will please hurry up in his game against Feli Lopez, because: It’s really late and, hey, we wanted to see Sasha. Del Potro does us the favor and around 7 o’clock local time it is finally time, Sascha Zverev and Taylor Fritz enter the holy lawn. It starts very relaxed, Sascha makes a good impression, I have time to take some nice photos and videos, but from sentence 2 the mood changes. Fritz plays really hard and Sascha lets himself be pushed further and further behind the baseline. Second set’s gone. Soon it is clear: After the 3rd set it will be stopped here because of darkness. After our favourite player has really messed up this 3rd set in the tiebreak, the referee announces: Lights out for today, tomorrow we will continue playing.
With a somewhat queasy feeling we leave the area… Hmm, that wasn’t the ending we had in mind. What are we going to do tomorrow? Back on court one and see the match through? But we don’t like the rest of the line up for Court 1 tomorrow and spend 78 pounds just to see Sascha lose in the end? After some back and forth we decide to take Friday off-day, get a really good number for Saturday and hope that Zverev will make it on Friday without us.
And so we really have the incredible cue card numbers 200 and 201 for Saturday – free choice. We spend the free Friday shopping, sunbathing, going for a walk and having many nice conversations with other tennis fans. The official rule is that you must never leave the campsite for more than half an hour to keep your place in the cue. Specifically, the stewards check once a day at a random time, which, however, is announced almost an hour in advance, to see if everyone is still there. If you do well with your neighbours, who will inform you in case of a check, you can also take a longer camping break. We won’t get really bored on Friday. We actually know some other cue faces from last year. Because, who was once in the cue, then somehow comes again and again.
The highlight of Friday afternoon: While we are watching via app as Sascha Zverev fights Taylor Fritz in sets 4 and 5, Mama Zverev walks past us with the famous family dog Lövik. I nudge Ina, but I don’t want to stare too obviously. Otherwise, the two walk through the rows of campers, completely unrecognized and comfortably, and take a walk around the lake. In retrospect I am annoyed that I didn’t say something nice to Mama Zverev and didn’t use the chance to scramble Lövik, but the two of them were granted anonymity.
Saturday is our second day at the facility. The British around us think we are crazy, but together with some nice Romanians, we are the only ones with such good cue numbers who decide against the Centre Court again on Saturday, and thus against Nadal and Djokovic, and again vote for the Halep and Zverev estate on Court 1.
And that seems to pay off: While the matches on the Centre Court are fast and smooth, we first see one of the most interesting and exciting women’s matches I have ever seen live: The Taiwanese Hsieh comes like a lioness, becomes the real darling of the audience and, thanks to her “ball wall qualities”, completely upsets the world number one. Some incredible rallies later we are live witnesses, one of the great sensations of the tournament. I’m a little sad for the super nice Romanian and her daughter, whom we met in the cue.
Well, now it’s “Sascha-Time”. Hopefully it will be faster and smoother this time than on Thursday, he should spare my nerves a bit. But no. After seeing our favourite player live at all three tournaments so far, I only saw convincing victories, this Wimbledon tournament is not good for us. Especially in the third movement I almost scream my soul out of my body: “Come, Sasha! Let’s go! Stay with him! You can do this!”
He actually turns the third set over, I and all the other spectators prepare for a now relaxed four-set victory, but then Sascha, as he said so nicely later at the press conference, “pulls the plug” and nothing more works. Slight mistakes without end and a great playing Ernsets Gulbis. It was nothing. Almost as frustrated as Sascha, we sneak back into the cue with our heads hanging at the end of this tennis day.
Oh yes, we also heard the story with the linesman live. And somehow the whole scene didn’t seem as wild to us as it was reported in the media afterwards. From our point of view: Completely out of nowhere the linesman runs to the referee’s chair and says something. Thereupon Zverev gets a warning. He then runs to the referee and asks. All we can understand is: “I didn’t say that to him…!”, from Zverev’s mouth. When we change sides, we hear Sasha shouting something else. The camera definitely understood more than we did. Stupid for Sasha. My opinion on the subject: The boy simply still has to learn some things perhaps only to think and not to speak out loudly.
Well, topic Zverev was over. Back in the cue we get the numbers 835 and 836 and since Sunday is free, there is no chance of improvement. Centre Court dreams for the “Manic Monday” seem to have been shattered. I wanted to see my childhood idol Serena Williams live again after ten years… Ina so wanted to see Roger on the Centre Court. Damn it. Saturday evening, after we realized that we didn’t have a chance on Centre Court, we really didn’t feel like it. I wish we’d booked our flight home tomorrow. The tent does not get more comfortable from night to night, we do not feel fresher after three days without a decent shower either. The mood is at its lowest.
Slowly but surely we pull ourselves out on Sunday. My cousin, who lives in London, comes by and we sit down at the lake for a few nice hours in the nice weather. The weather is great and we come to the conclusion that even the “Grounds” on Monday have a nice program… and besides, we’ll be back next year anyway.
This is our last Wimbledontag 2018. We refuse to accept tapes for Court 1 or 2 and decide on a 25 pound ground ticket. I’m trying to find some Federer fans who leave me their Centre Court ticket after the Federer game, but most still want to watch Serena or they’ve already found other fans to trade with. But after conversations with some people, a new idea suddenly matures in me: We will queue for the ticket resale right from the start. Another really beautiful, visitor-friendly action of the Wimbledon organizers: From 15:00 o’clock each tournament day, tickets of visitors who leave the facility early will be resold for the price of 15 pounds.
Since we queue there from 10:30 a.m., we are number four and five in the resale queue and so our Centre Court dream still comes true: From 3:00 p.m. on the dot we are the owners of Centre Court tickets. We waited another four hours in the sun, didn’t see another match until 3:00 pm and missed Federer, but hey we experience Serena and Rafa very close and for a total price of 40 pounds. Finally there is a mixed with Victoria Azarenka and Jamie Murray on top.
Tired, somewhat exhausted, tanned like seldom before in my life, we pick up our luggage on Monday 22:00 o’clock local time at our favourite campground and wave “Goodbye”! It’s really a little nostalgic. Somehow we spent these five days in a completely different world, far away from everyday life, in a sunny, crazy, exciting Wimbledon tennis world. Now we have an uncomfortable night ahead of us at London Stansted Airport, where the next morning at 07:00 o’clock our plane goes back to Germany.
Now I am back home for three days and somehow the days between campground, Wimbledon Park, water filling stations, stewards in yellow and orange vests, court no. 1, cue cards and my Sascha cheering seem unreal and just a bit crazy. But I like being crazy. Especially for one of my greatest passions, tennis. Wimbledon, we’ll be back next year.