Ged & Daisy gently watching on early in the day – Court 12
We had a truly lovely day at Wimbledon.
We were mostly there to see two quarter-finals on No. 1 Court:
Iga Swiatek v Liudmila Samsonova;
Jannik Sinner v Ben Shelton.
Unusually, we ended up seeing both of the eventual singles tournament winners in action on No. 1 Court that day.
LiudmilaIga to pleaseJannik & Ben at the tossJannik and his shadow in full flow
But before all that, as usual, we got Wimbledon well early and made a bee-line to Court 12, where we saw bits of:
Fabrice Santoro & Anne Keothavong v Nenad Zimonjic & Martina Navratilova;
Hannah Klugman v Charo Esquiva Banuls.
Anne & Fabrice foreground, Martina and Nenad behindHannah preparing to playCharo in full flow
I did a fair bit of wandering around during and between the quarter finals matches on No. 1 Court, mostly taking in some junior action or just taking in the atmosphere generally.
Janie and I decided to spend a day watching the grass court tournament at Queen’s this year, as well as several days at other less high-falutin’ tournaments such as Eastbourne and Wimbledon (see subsequent Ogblogs for those).
Being Wednesday, we got to see four of the Round Of 16 matches. We saw:
Lorenzo Musetti beat Ben Shelton;
Cameron Norrie beat Jordan Thompson;
Holger Rune beat Ryan Peniston;
Sebastian Korda beat Frances Tiafoe.
Lots of players we like and/or wanted to see on that list, so we were very pleased with our schedule for the day.
Returning to 2023, we took loads of photographs, more of players we weren’t going to see practicing on practice courts than pictures of our own matches.
Here’s a sample of them, ahead of a link which will allow you to skim the whole lot:
Tim Henman, Annabel Croft & Catherine WhitakerThe view from our pews – not bad – Ben Shelton getting ready to serveLorenzo Musetti in full flowDiego Schwartzman practicingLloyd Glasspool practicingDaisy & Ged model a fridge for reasons known only to the Haider marketing teamDaisy gets busy with the selfiesCam Norrie heads our wayAdrian Mannarino at practiceRyan Peniston takes the ballHolger Rune servesCommentators on a balcony behind us. At one point Annabel came and sat right behind usFrances TiafoeSebastian Korda
We had a very enjoyable day, although I must say that the Queen’s tournament feels a bit more corporate, less fun & friendly, each time we go there now.
