Wimbledon is arguably the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world and tickets are not easy to come by. If you haven’t been successful with the ballot, the good news is that you can still get tickets if you queue for them. The bad news is that thousands of others are doing the same thing so you’ll need to be well prepared in order to have the best chance to secure the tickets. If you’re thinking of queuing for tickets, I hope the following post will help give you an idea of what to expect!
Here are some useful links from the official Wimbledon website that provide more information about the queuing process. Click on the topics below to access the links:
Day 2 – 3 July 2019, Wednesday
Tonight would be an exciting night as we would be queuing overnight for tickets to tomorrow’s (Thursday’s) Wimbledon matches. As mentioned in my first post (click here), I had successfully balloted for Centre Court tickets to Saturday’s 3rd Round (3R) matches. However, YS and I felt that just one day of tennis action wasn’t enough so we decided to queue overnight to secure tickets for tomorrow’s 2nd Round (2R) matches as well.
Wimbledon is one of the very few major UK sporting events where you can still buy premium tickets on the day of play. Except for the last four days on Centre Court, a limited number of tickets (500 per court) are available daily for the three Show Courts – Centre Court (£83), Court No. 1 (£72) and Court No. 2 (£52). The caveat is that you have to buy them in person on the morning itself, which means you have to physically queue for them.
In recent years, there has been an increased number of fans who queue up overnight. YS himself had done so during one of his trips years ago but there weren’t so many people then. We shall soon find out exactly how many people will show up this year.
On Wednesday evening, after we had taken our dinner, we left our hostel at 9pm and made our way to Southfields, the station closest to the start of The Queue, which is at Wimbledon Park. (Note: Do not go to Wimbledon station as it is very far from the start of The Queue) The train journey from Oxford Circus to Southfields took about 30 minutes. Upon alighting, we saw the crowds who had just finished the day’s matches and were going back to the city. There were only a few people who alighted with us, so we felt quite hopeful that we would be able to get a good position in The Queue.
After exiting Southfields station, we followed the signs to The Queue. After about 10 minutes of walking, we reached Wimbledon Park and there were yet more signs to direct us to The Queue. It still seemed quite empty at that point so we were in great spirits.
After walking for another 3 minutes, we finally saw The Queue in all its glory. It was more of a campsite than a queue, as there were rows and rows of colourful tents stretching to the far end of the field. It reminded me of the scene in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where wizards and witches from all over the world were camping before the start of the Quidditch World Cup match. As there were no ushers to guide us, we followed the line of tents to the end of section K1, but we saw that sections K2 and K3 were also filled to the end of the line. Finally, we reached section K4, which was only half-filled.
We asked one of the fans who had just settled down what we should do, and she said we should approach the steward holding a yellow flag to get a queue card. At this point, some other fans had also just arrived so we approached the steward together. The steward issued us a queue card each and told us to pitch our tents in a tidy manner along the line, in the order of the number indicated on the queue card. Each queue card is serialised with a unique number in running order.
It was 10:20pm when we got our queue cards, and our numbers were 01397 and 01398. That means there were already 1,396 people ahead of us in the queue! And this was at 10:20pm the night before! Remember I mentioned earlier that there are only 500 tickets allocated each for Centre Court, Court No. 1 and Court No. 2? This means that based on our queue number, we would have almost zero chance of getting Centre Court or Court No. 1 tickets, since the first 1,000 fans would presumably snap them up first. The only consoling factor was that we were at least assured of a ticket to Court No. 2, as our queue numbers were below 01500.
We then unpacked our supplies and set up our beds for the night. Actually, we only had a groundsheet and some jackets to keep us warm for the night. As we looked around, we saw that we were the only ones among those who arrived before midnight who did not have a tent or a sleeping bag. The other fans must have thought in their hearts: these guys are either very brave or very stupid!
After setting up our space, I felt very tired for some reason and I fell asleep quite quickly. However, the group of people beside us were talking and laughing quite loudly, disturbing the peace. The stewards came over twice to ask them to keep their volume down. I managed to sleep for about two hours before it finally got too cold and I could not sleep anymore.
Day 3 – 4 July 2019, Thursday
At about 1am, I woke up as the cold was unbearable. YS didn’t even sleep. Even though the weather app showed that it was only 14 degrees Celcius at that time, it felt much colder than that, because we were in an open field and exposed to the elements. I had worn a UNIQLO Heat Tech inner layer for both the top and bottom, a short-sleeved polo T-shirt, jeans, a windbreaker, a down jacket, another fleece jacket and a pair of gloves, yet it was still not enough.
YS had brought along a bottle of red wine and we sipped on it, but it didn’t keep us any warmer. We took turns to go for walks and moved our limbs as much as we could. When all of that didn’t work, I decided to stand and stay awake instead of sleeping, because the ground was simply too cold.
Lesson learnt: At the very minimum, you should bring along a groundsheet and a good sleeping bag. A tent + sleeping bag will be ideal, especially in the event of rain.
People were still streaming in to the grounds to join The Queue throughout the night. Finally, the sky started to brighten at 4am. By 5am, people started to wake up and emerge from their tents. The food and drink stalls were open again so I went to get some much-needed hot coffee. I had never wanted coffee more badly! The rising sun and hot coffee worked wonders and I began to defrost slowly.
The newcomers who just arrived did not bring tents but some brought along safari chairs, picnic mats and blankets. At 6am, I estimate that there were at least 3,000 people in The Queue. Those who are not able to get tickets to the three Show Courts are still able to get Ground Passes (£25), a few thousand of which are available each day. The Ground Pass allows the fan to access unreserved seating and standing room areas on Courts No. 3 – 18.
At 6:30am, the stewards went around to wake those who were still sleeping, and asked us to start packing up our stuff as the queue would be moving soon. At about 7am, the queue started to move and compressed into a tighter formation as the tents had been dismantled and kept aside. There is a place for left luggage where you can keep your tents and bulky items, or even a suitcase up to 60cm x 45cm x 25cm in size. It costs £5 for the service.
At 8:10am, the stewards came to us and told us that Centre Court and Court No. 1 tickets had been exhausted, as expected. Only Court No. 2 and Ground Passes were available, so we went for the Court No. 2 tickets. They then tagged us with the appropriate coloured wristbands.
At 8:30am, we entered the grounds of Wimbledon Park Golf Course, where we continued to wait patiently for our turn to enter the grounds. While waiting, I overheard a guy telling his friend over the phone that it’s been a long 36 hours and he managed to get a ticket to Court No. 1, where Roger Federer will be playing today. 36 hours! That means many of the fans in the queue who pitched tents were not queuing for today’s matches but for tomorrow’s matches, two days in advance!
As we inched forward slowly, it was 9:30am when we caught sight of the entrance kiosk, where the turnstiles are located. At 9:35am, a steward came around to ask us which section of the seats we would like to get. He showed us a seating map of Court No. 2 and we chose the section behind the baseline. From there, the queue split into six different queues, with each one corresponding to a different section, so we joined the queue for the section that we selected.
We finally got our tickets just before 10am, almost 12 hours after we started queuing. We were so happy when we finally got our hands on those precious tickets. Very hard earned indeed!
After passing through the turnstiles, we were greeted by the beautiful sight of Centre Court. At that moment, all my tiredness seeped away and was replaced by a wave of excitement. We happily took photos with the Centre Court stadium and the Order of Play board. After that, we went to get some food as we were famished after all that queuing. We went to the Food Village and treated ourselves to fish & chips (£9.20 / S$16).
For Court No. 2, four matches were scheduled for today – two ladies’ singles and two gentlemen’s singles. The first match at 11am was between the current World No. 1 and top seed Ashleigh Barty (Australia) and Alison van Uytvanck (Belgium). As we made our way to Court No. 2, we passed by some of the open courts along the way and caught a bit of the action.
We then went to buy ourselves a Pimm’s Cup Cocktail each. According to YS, the drink is a tradition at Wimbledon and it’s a must-have. Pimm’s Cup Cocktail is a gin-based herbal liqueur with cucumber, orange slices and mint leaves. It was citrusy, light and refreshing, perfect for a sunny day like today.
Court No. 2 is quite small and our seats were very close to the action. The stadium was less than half full when play commenced. Ashleigh Barty was too good for her opponent and easily won the first set 6-1. Seeing that it wouldn’t be much of a fight, we decided to leave after the first set to catch some other more exciting matches on the open courts.
The open courts did not have reserved seating so of course, the limited seats were all taken by the time we were there. We just stood at the aisle to watch the action. It felt quite strange to be so close to the players for a Wimbledon match…it felt more like watching a tennis match at national level or SEA Games level rather than at one of the Grand Slams.
When we were at the Australian Open in Melbourne last year, it was a pity we didn’t take the opportunity to venture to the open courts to watch the other games, so I can’t really compare how different they are. But for the tournament as a whole, the vibe at Wimbledon is very different based on what I’ve seen so far. Whereas the AO is focused on a fun and relaxed atmosphere, Wimbledon is all about tradition and heritage. However, both are equally enjoyable.
Another highlight is to visit the well-stocked Wimbledon Shop, which sells every type of merchandise you can dream of. T-shirts, towels, bags, magnets, badges, tennis balls, caps, you name it, they have it. I had always wanted to get a classic Wimbledon Panama Hat, but it was super expensive…something like £120, so obviously, I didn’t buy it. The next time you see someone wearing it on TV, you know the person is very rich.
Anyway, if you’re a tourist and you live outside the EU, you are eligible for tax refund if you spend £50 and above in a single receipt. The tax refund booth is conveniently located outside the huge Wimbledon Shop. However, you will only get the money back at the airport tax refund counter.
At about 1:40pm, we went to queue at Court No. 17 to catch Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in action against Ričardas Berankis from Lithuania. We waited quite long to get seats because those who were already there did not give up their seats easily. In the meantime, YS went to buy Strawberries and Cream, another Wimbledon tradition.
According to the Wimbledon website, 190,900 portions of strawberries and cream were consumed during two weeks of The Championships in 2018, which works out to over 13,600 portions a day! The price for a portion is £2.50, and it has remained the same since 2010. Actually, it’s really just strawberries and cream. It’s a very simple snack and nothing special. But since it’s a Wimbledon tradition, we went with the flow.
We watched the Tsonga-Berankis match for a while but the sun was very strong and I felt like I was slowly being roasted, so we left before the match ended. Tsonga won the match in straight sets, by the way.
After that, YS went to the Shop to buy some more towels for his friends, and we then went to the booth to personalise the towels. You can personalise them by having your initials stitched onto the towels, limited to four characters only. The service costs £5 per towel. You can also do the same for the caps.
While waiting for YS’ towels to be done, I went to the famous Henman Hill to watch the matches live on the big screen. Henman Hill is officially known as Aorangi Terrace but the grassy slope was nicknamed as such because British fans would congregate here to watch the matches of local favourite Tim Henman in the late 1990s. This is the place where the camera would sweep across above during the breaks between games and thousands of fans would wave to the camera.
I was watching the Rafael Nadal vs Nick Kyrgios match on the screen when I saw a gentleman slowly make his way up the hill before sitting down beside me. He introduced himself as being from BBC Radio, and asked if I would mind being interviewed by him as part of getting some audience reaction from the ground. I was quite amused that he chose to interview me, but I said ok.
YS then joined me shortly after, and I filled him in on what was about to happen. He was surprised and amused as well. I then asked the BBC journalist if the interview was going to be ‘live’ on air, and he laughed and replied, “Of course not!”, as if I had asked the most obvious question in the world. But being a former radio student, I know that these vox pops can be pre-recorded or ‘live’, so I just wanted to be sure. Anyway, I didn’t take offence with his comment. He was very nice and I think he was just trying to make me feel less nervous.
While waiting to go on air, he asked us a few questions to warm us up and prep us. We waited quite a while before we finally went on air. It was ‘live’ of course. He asked us what we thought about Kyrgios employing the underarm serve, to which I replied it’s within the rules and it’s all fair. He also asked us some other questions about Wimbledon in general. The interview lasted about a minute and it was over quickly. If you happened to tune in to BBC Radio on 4 July 2019 at about 5:35pm, you could have heard us on air. That’s something to remember for sure!
At about 5:50pm, we went back to our seats at Court No. 2 to watch the last match of the day – Marcos Baghdatis (Cyprus) vs Matteo Berrettini (Italy). By this time, the sun wasn’t as hot anymore so it was a very pleasant way to end to the day.
Wimbledon was going to be 34-year-old Baghdatis’ swansong as he had announced that he would be retiring after this tournament. After receiving a wildcard, he beat Brayden Schnur in the first round to stave off retirement. However, Berrettini was simply too strong for him. Baghdatis put up a valiant effort in the second set but lost the tiebreak, eventually falling to Berrettini in straight sets.
At the end of the match, we gave him an extended standing ovation and he was clearly overcome with emotion by the love from all the fans. He started giving away his equipment – his racquets, T-shirts and even his shoes! Too bad he didn’t come our way and throw us a pair of his shoes. That would have made a very valuable souvenir!
With the conclusion of the day’s action, we made our way to Southfields station to catch the train back to the city. Upon YS’ recommendation, we went to Bayswater to have dinner at Gold Mine, said to be the best Chinese restaurant in London. The restaurant is quite big, with a setting that is very typical of a Chinese restaurant in Singapore during the 90s. It was packed with diners when we arrived at 8:20pm.
Gold Mine is famous for their roasted duck so we ordered a portion of it to share. Additionally, I ordered a plate of Yang Zhou fried rice because I was very hungry. YS also ordered a plate of noodles. The bill came up to £36.90 (S$64.20) altogether.
When the waiter served us the duck, he said it was “the best duck in the world”. And it was really quite good, I must say. The meat was soft and succulent, and the sauce was slightly salty but very tasty. Certainly worth a try if you’re visiting London.
After dinner, we went to the nearby Tesco to buy some water, croissants and buns for tomorrow’s breakfast. Our hands were full with groceries and Wimbledon merchandise, and we were super tired by this time. So we decided to book an Uber ride to take us back to our hostel instead of taking the Tube. It was the best £10 spent. By the time we reached our hostel, it was about 9:30pm. It had been a super long day with very little sleep but tons of excitement. It had been a very memorable Wimbledon experience so far. Can’t wait for our next Wimbledon match on Saturday!