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.

And Finally…We Visit Wimbledon Centre Court On A Finals Day, 7 July 2022

In the past decade, Janie and I have been incredibly lucky scoring good tickets for Wimbledon in the ballot. Many good days, including quarter finals days and semi finals days. But until now, we have never attended a finals day.

It seems to be my year in this “finals” respect. A few weeks ago I was able to report a first in the matter of me getting to a final playing tennis, albeit the real variety and albeit at Queen’s:

Much as the Queen’s tournament described above was a mixed doubles affair (in that case, mixed ability i.e. handicap doubles), I am talking about Wimbledon’s new idea to hold the Mixed Doubles Final on Ladies Semi-Final day.

In truth, it wasn’t until a couple of days before we went that it occurred to me that I had inadvertently scored a brace of tickets for a finals day. It was a nice surprise when we found out. It became even more of a pleasant surprise when we learnt that Neal Skupski & Desirae Krawczyk would be appearing in that final.

But let us start from the beginning of a truly magical day.

We like to get to Wimbledon reasonably early on such a day to see some smaller court stuff before the grand event. On this occasion we managed to get to the Wimbledon campus about 11:45, giving us nearly two hours to take a look around.

Mili Poljicak
Kilian Feldbausch

First up we wanted to see, on Court 12, the infeasibly named Kilian Feldbausch of Switzerland against the equally infeasibly named Mili Poljicak of Croatia.

Goran Ivanišević also wanted a look at the Croatian lad

We’d missed the first set, which the Swiss lad had won convincingly, but Mili turned it all around in sets two and three, looking very convincing indeed. News update: Mili went on to win the entire Boys tournament.

Mili Poljicak: crazy name, crazy guy – remember where you heard the name first.

Here is a listing of all the games we saw (and the ones we didn’t) that day, if you want to know the scores.

Next, we wandered across to No. 2 Court to take a look at a young American named Liv Hovde against a German girl named Ella Seidel.

Liv Hovde
Ella Seidel

Liv Hovde played really well to win her first set and indeed (it turns out) went on to win not only the match but the entire Girls tournament.

It transpired that we were sitting very close to Liv’s coach, whom Liv was ignoring throughout the set, so we tried to engage him in some motivational pleasantries as we departed, but he did not seem to be an especially communicative chap. Alejandro Garcia Cenzano he’s called, which, together with my new-found Rossiter family connection, made me think of this corny commercial – click here.

Remember where you heard the name first…Liv Hovde I mean.

Next, we popped in to No. 3 Court to see a few minutes of Czech girl Linda Klimovikova against promising Brit Jasmine Conway.

Linda Klimovikova
Jasmine Conway

No. 3 Court has a tasty view of Members & Centre

We saw Jasmine win the first set, by which time we needed to get across to Centre Court for the start of the semi-finals. A steward asked us why we were leaving so soon. We explained. He said…

thank you for slumming it for a while with us here on No. 3 Court,

…which I thought was pretty funny.


On the way to Centre Court we ran into Mats Wilander, Àlex Corretja & Barbara Schett; Daisy was keen to snap them.

First up, Ons Jabeur against Tatjana Maria. Those two are incredibly close friends, by all accounts, which made their embrace and the interview with the victorious Ons after the match especially moving.

Snacking on nuts and fruit only gets you so far at this stage of the day – it was “out with the trout” time:

My classic smoked fish sandwiches

Elena Rybakina serves to Simona Halep…
…and vice versa

Elena Rybakina, surprisingly (to us) blew away Simona Halep. Meanwhile, Matthew Ebden, one of the Mixed Doubles finalists, had only just finished his Gentlemen’s Doubles five-set-epic semi-final on No. 1 Court, so while he got some well-deserved rest, the authorities laid on some Invitation Mixed Doubles to keep the crowd entertained.

Mansour Bahrami serving

Todd Woodbridge & Cara Black verses the evergreen Mansour Bahrami and Conchita Martinez. Some people love this exhibition stuff. I tire of it quite quickly and in any case needed to move my legs and butt, so I decided to go for a stroll after a short while.

On my stroll, I watched the end of an Under 14’s girls match between young Brit Isabelle Britton and young Algerian Maria Badache.

It did not go well for Maria. Isabelle looks very promising.

Then on to Court 8 to see the end of Arabella Loftus (GB) against Marianne Angel of Mexico.

Arabella Loftus
Arabella and Marianne

By the time I got back to Centre Court, the Old Git Doubles was also close to the handshake moment and we started to feel the buzz for the Mixed Doubles Final.

Neal Skupski, Desirae Krawczyk, Matthew Ebden & Samantha Stosur warming up
Ebden serves to Skupski

Those enormous strawberries all had to go.

Soon enough came the winning moment – Skupski & Krawczyk were to be the champions.

It was a long day – over all too quickly. Daisy snapped the headline picture and the one below as we left in the late evening sunshine, which sort-of sums up the Wimbledon vibe.