A Splendid Day At Wimbledon On “Second Monday”, 8 July 2024

Rune & Djokovic Squaring Up Ahead of Centre Court Battle

I scored us a pair of centre court tickets for the second Monday of Wimbledon this year. Not bad, I hear you cry. I thought it was a smart move this year. I always thought that “Manic Monday” was better observed from the comfort of a living room and a gadget that enables switching between channels. But the craziness of “Manic Monday” has, in theory, been dissipated by the use of “Middle Sunday” for half of the draw.

Theory and practice failed to collide this year, with so much rain through Week One and Middle Sunday, that our Monday, which was blessed with good weather until early evening, was pretty manic.

Still, we were scheduled to see the following matches on Centre Court…

  • Elena Rybakina v Anna Kalinskaya
  • Taylor Fritz v Alexander Zverev
  • Novak Djokovic v Holger Rune

…and there was loads to see on outer courts.

Taylor Townsend & Katerina Siniakova on Court 18

We arrived a little late to get in to one of the main outer courts for the first match of the day, but after wandering around for a short while, I worked out that we’d get on to Court 18 to see at least part of the conclusion of a rain-affected Ladies Doubles including several players we like: Katerina Siniakova & Taylor Townsend v Leylah Fernandez & Ena Shibahara.

Rain constantly threatened but didn’t come until late afternoon

We bailed out of Court 18 before the finish, keen to see the first match on Centre Court.

Elena Rybakina & Anna Kalinskaya

After the first set, I went out to stretch my legs, only to discover, on my return after the first three games of the second set, that Kalinskaya had retired. Still, my leg-stretching had enabled me to spec out the neighbouring outer courts, where some of the youngster action was now underway.

Flora Johnson

We watched Flora Johnson overcome Alena Kovackova before returning for the start of the Fritz v Zverev match – a rare example of a match between two players with Z in their surname.

Zverev hitting

Having consumed my hot smoked salmon bagel during the first match, perhaps my defences were down. Or perhaps it was the relentless big serves and not much else at the start of that match. Anyway, I must confess that Janie caught me napping during the first set and kindly prevented what might have been a notorious snore-gate incident.

I did the leg stretch thing again at the start of the second set and returned for the end of that set, which also went Zverev’s way. I suggested to Janie that the rest of the match was only going to be interesting if Fritz revived and that would take quite some time. Janie agreed, so we decided to wander around some more and take in the outer courts.

Janie’s eye’s fell on some mixed doubles: Jan Zielinski & Su-Wei Hsieh v Hugo Nys & Demi Schuurs.

Hugo Nys & Demi Schuurs

Su-Wei Hsieh

It really is a privilege to be able to watch these fantastic players at such close quarters on those outer courts.

Then we focussed on some more youngsters for a while: Henry Bernet & Flynn Thomas v Mark Ceban & Charlie Swaine.

Mark Ceban & Charlie Swaine

Then to Court 14, where I spotted that an interesting-looking mixed doubles was about to start: Maximo Gonzalez & Ulrikke Eikeri v Jean-Julien Rojer & Bethanie Mattek-Sands…

…but not before Janie snapped some hydrangeas that took her fancy:

Bettanie serves

Ulrikke Eikeri & Maximo Gonzalez

All the while I was keeping an eye on the score from Centre Court. Once it became clear that the fourth set between Fritz and Zverev was heading for a tie-break, I suggested that we return to see the end of that match, one way or another.

That we did and it was a well worthwhile switch. That tie break was excellent and Fritz went up through the gears in the final set.

Fritz, victorious

We stuck around for the first set of Rune v Djokovic (see headline picture), but by then we had seen plenty and thought that people queuing for returns were more deserving than us.

Besides, it had started raining and it looked as thought he rain would only get worse. We quite fancied getting home before the proper heavy stuff.

The young lad from Guest Services admired my poncho, describing it as “stunning”. Excellent taste, some youngsters these days, excellent taste and good choice of advective. He even sounded as though he meant it.

Here is a link to the order of play with results for the whole day.

We didn’t go too mad with the camera at this one – we were a bit photo-ed out from Eastbourne. But if you want to see all 60 pictures, here they are on Flickrt:

We always have a a great day at Wimbledon. This day, despite its frenetic nature, was no exception.

A Wonderful Wimbledon Day, Gentleman’s Quarter Finals Day, No. 1 Court, 10 July 2019

Janie seems to have a knack with the Wimbledon public ballot. Last year she got super seats on Centre Court for Ladies’ Singles Semi-Finals Day…

This year, men’s quarter-finals day on No. 1 Court. Oh boy was Janie excited again when those came through.

Picnic duties for me once again, with the centrepiece smoked salmon kindly supplied by Helga from her local West Cork smokehouse.

We had such success last year getting to Wimbledon early, getting to see Cori (now Coco) Gauff play in a Girls’ Quarter-Final on Court 18 before our main matches, I suggested that we get to Wimbledon before the start of play this year.

On the way, we were joined on the District Line by this keen tennis fan who couldn’t resist eating his fill on the train before even getting to Wimbledon:

He got on at Earl’s Court and was still on the train when we got to Southfields

In fact, we ended up at the All England Club so early they wouldn’t even let us into the main compound for a few minutes – not until 10:30 – a lesson for next time, if there is a next time for us.

Still, that early arrival at least enabled us to get front row seats (actually second row, as the front row view is a little restricted) on Court 12 to see a Ladies’ Doubles Quarter-Final: Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Danielle Collins v Gabriela Dabrowski and Yifan Xu. The latter pair went on to be runners up this year but it was really the former pair we were especially keen to see.

So ready to watch tennis
Not so ready to watch tennis
Ladies’ Doubles

We had plenty of time between that (rather short) match and the start of the No. 1 Court action, which enabled us to amble across the compound and take in the atmosphere before taking up our No. 1 Court seats.

Then to our seats on No 1. Court. Almost right at the back…

Must be one of the Backseat Boys
This must have been Janie’s fifth attempt at a double-selfie

…very similar to the seats we occupied a few years ago when we witnessed the famous third round match between Sam Querrey and Novac Djokovic

Roberto Bautista Agut (our end) playing Guido Pella (hazard end)

That first match was a very good one. Bautista Agut always looked likely to win but was not so far ahead of Pella for the result to be sure until the very end – especially after Pella took a set.

During the innings break (between sets one and two) I took a long stroll to stretch my legs and stuff, running into Nick Compton (formerly Middlesex and England). We had a chat before wending our ways back to our respective courts.

It seems that we were missing some stuff on other courts and also missed out on Bautista Agut’s press conference after winning, in which he admitted that winning had messed up his stag do plans:

Sam Querrey (our end) against Rafael Nadal (other end)

The first set of the Querrey/Nadal match was excellent, but when Nadal eventually prevailed in that set, Querrey seemed to run out of juice for the remaining sets.

We didn’t stick around for the evening entertainment of old crock’s doubles – we felt we’d had a superb day and a sufficiency in having seen three good, week two matches.

Here is a link to the order of play that day – not sure if it is a permanent record for 2019 judging by the web address.

Let’s see how Janie gets on in the ballot next time – she has been extremely lucky these past few years, only missing out completely in 2017. I hope she isn’t too disappointed if the balloting system doesn’t pick us again for a while. But I also hope that her lucky streak continues!

Here and below is a link to all of the photos we took that day: