Aaron and I went with a few friends who were in town last week. There are two tickets types at Wimbledon: court seats or grounds passes. If you don't have a court ticket, you can get a grounds pass by showing up and waiting in line. They hand them out to the first 5,000 people that show up. On Wednesday, we arrived at Wimbledon at 7am and were put in a long line- number 2,905. We got into the grounds at 10:30am; not as long of a wait as I was expecting actually! And in true British fashion, they handed out "A Guide to Queueing".
Inside the grounds were decorated with purple, green and white - the Wimbledon colors. We were actually with two people who did have tickets to Court 1 so we were able to swap them around and take turns watching the matches. We got to see Djokovic beat Cilic on Day 9.
If you don't have tickets to the main courts and only have ground passes, you can watch matches that are happening on the outside courts since they have no assigned seats. We actually watched the no 5 ranked women's doubles beat the no 1 ranked women's doubles this way. They also have a grass hill with a huge screen set up so you can watch the ticketed matches from there too.
The weather was incredible- sunny and perfect for an afternoon Pimms (British Sangria/lemonade-like drink) and strawberries and cream (traditional Wimbledon favorite). One of my favorite things was watching the ball girls and boys who grab the tennis balls when they stop play. They were so intense the whole time, sprinting this way and that way with no-emotion, serious faces. You wondered if they were tired or excited if their favorite player won because they never did show it!
Wimbledon is such a timeless tradition. It was exciting to be a part of the action and when the entire crowd felt heartbroken watching Murray get defeated, you did too. It was a unique British experience that was fun to share with friends from home. And years from now when we are watching it on TV, we can say, "remember that time we went to Wimbledon?"
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