Tag: Venus Williams

A Day at Wimbledon, No.1 Court, First Friday, 1 July 2016

Wimbledon 2016
A little bit of tennis history, Querrey v Djokovic

Janie seems to have a knack with the Wimbledon ballot; two years in the last three she has been allocated seats for No.1 Court on the first Friday of the tournament. Even last year we ended up with a couple of last minute, random tickets for No.2 Court on the first Wednesday.

But while Janie’s balloting-winning skills are beyond reproach, her ability to control the weather on the days of our Wimbledon visits is decidedly dodgy.

This time, we were a little disappointed when the tickets arrived to find that we were almost right at the back of No.1 Court in Row Y. However, with iffy weather on the cards, we were pleased to discover that we would be well and truly under cover back there. In any case, “right at the back” is not all that far back on that court.

I was on picnic duties for today, although Janie had so over-provided the previous weekend that many of the major contents emanated from her. Cray fish in dill mayonnaise (which I placed inside Paul Rhodes’s brioche rolls), mini-wiches with Cornish Yarg and sesame bagels stuffed with a wonderful mature cheddar. A fruity Riesling earlier in the day and a Californian Pinot Noir, half of which made it home afterwards. Top picnic, though I say so myself.

Why were we picinicing there? Oh yes, tennis.

First up, after a short rain delay before the match even started, was Venus Williams v Daria Kasatkina. Daria is only 19 but already looks every bit a star in the making. She coped with the dual problems of Venus and the rain extremely well – this article – click here – reviews the match comprehensively.  The rain delay on match point was a first for us and also was, apparently, a first even for the uber-experienced Venus. Even ignoring the rain delays, this was a very long but fascinating match.

Then, Sam Querrey v Novak Djokovic. About four games into the first set, I said to Janie, “if I were a creature from outer space who had simply been told that one of these two players was far and away the best in the world, I’d be thinking that player must be Querrey just at the moment”. Janie agreed.

The first set was a real tussle, which Querrey won. The second was a rout by Querrey. We thought we might witness a major upset, but the heavens opened within moments of Querrey winning the second set and that was it for the day.

Here’s the BBC report on the whole match – click here. I got to see the denouement on the TV the following day, as the continuing rain meant that the fellas didn’t get back onto the court until late afternoon. A major upset and we had witnessed much, indeed most of it.

A Day At Wimbledon, Primarily On No. 2 Court, 1 July 2015

Janie has a terrific track record of getting tickets in the Wimbledon ballot in recent years.

This year, we didn’t get, but then quite late in the day she was offered two returns for the first Wednesday on No.2 Court which were not together but were relatively cheap. I thought it would be a good way to get a day at Wimbledon, see some tennis on that court and spend some time doing that thing we’ve never done – just wander around and take in the atmosphere on the outer courts.

To all intents and purposes it worked.

At first we couldn’t sit together on No.2 court as everyone was set in their seats. We therefore watched a very good match between Grigor Dimitrov and Steve Johnson from separate seats.

Here’s a link to the canonical on the men’s singles.

Here’s a link to the canonical on the women’s singles.

It was a very hot day – perhaps the hottest of the year.

Once Maria Sharapova started to demolish qualifer Richel Hogenkamp, we decided to take a wander.

I had marked up some interesting looking stuff on outer courts and we soon found a doubles on Court 10 between Garbine Muguruza / Carla Suarez Navarro and Alexandra Dulgheru / Silvia Soler-Espinos. We’d never seen Muguruza before but she was absolutely the stand-out player in that game, not least in the matter of court presence.

As we wilted in the heat, we sought some shade and some refreshment, as indeed many people were doing that day.

As the day started to cool a little, we returned to No.2 Court, by which time we were able to sit together in excellent seats. We caught the end of an excellent match between Marsel Ilhan and Kevin Anderson. Finally, we saw a spunky little Kazak named Yulia Putintseva almost pull off an upset against Venus Williams.

We won’t do that again if we are offered two separate seats; we’ve done the outer court wander bit now and much prefer to know that we’re all set in our prearranged seats for our picnic and tennis.

But we had a lovely day and were especially pleased for the early glimpse at Garbine Muguruza, who so nearly went on to win the Women’s Singles that year against all odds.