…but wait! An opportunity to snap up a pair of returns…Good ones?…Quarter-finals Tuesday on Court One? Yes please!
So there we were again.
Forgive us if we look a tiny bit smug
The weather forecast was less than special but if you are on Court One you are guaranteed your main action of course.
As it turned out, it looked as thought the weather would hold through the morning, so we did our usual thing of setting off reasonably early to catch a bit of smaller court action before our main event.
First up, we fancied seeing some juniors tennis and chose Viktor Frydrych (of Great Britain) v Darwin Blanch (USA) on Court 12.
We saw Frydrych win the first set but I thought Blanch the more promising player given the age difference, plus the power and accuracy Blanch demonstrated at such a young age.
We moved on to Court 3 to catch the first set of a doubles match: Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski v Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson:
Umpire Fergus Murphy explains the rules to all four of themSkupski top, Thompson belowKoolhof serves as Skupski waits to pounce
Koolhof and Skupski started slowly and looked a little out of sorts for the first 10 minutes or so, then quickly seemed to find their footing on a blowy day. Never let it be said that I don’t spot winners when I choose our morning of outer court viewing.
Still looking a bit smug
Then we needed to hot-foot it to Court One to be sure to catch the start of the quarter final action. Jessica Pegula v Marketa Vondrousova.
Do we look a little out of breath? We were there in time, just about. The nice lady with the pink cardigan behind us turned out to be even more of a tennis badger than us – she’s a self-confessed addict.
In truth, I wasn’t expecting this to be a great match because I thought that Vondrousova’s lack of form/experience on grass would be exploited by Pegula. What do I know?
In the end, it was actually a great match, with twists and turns and passages of great tennis.
Pegula top, Vondrousova below
After the rain/roof delay, Vondrousova took control and turned the match around. We were very impressed with her but still, frankly, did not expect her to win the tournament – I don’t suppose many people did. Still, well done her.
Rishi Persad asked Marketa Vondrousova penetrating questions of the “how does it feel to reach the semi-finals at Wimbledon?” variety. “Crazy” was Marketa’s pleonastic response word.
Next up, Jannik Sinner v Roman Safiullin. We were very excited to get a look at Sinner live, as we think he is a player with great potential. Again, I thought this match might be a one-sided affair as Safiullin has neither a track record on grass, nor going deep in slams. Again, this turned out to be a better match than we expected, with Sinner winning in four sets.
Safiullin serving, Sinner receivingApparently Sinner’s Gucci bag caused a fashionista stir
After that, rather than stick around for Invitation Doubles (or “Old Git Doubles” as I rather impolitely tend to call it), we took advantage of the improved weather and headed back to Court 3 where Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff were taking on Laura Siegemund and Vera Zvonareva in third round doubles action.
Lovely views across Wimbledon from our seats thereRichard Haigh officiatingLaura Siegemund top, Vera Zvonareva belowJessica top, Coco below
This was also the perfect opportunity to finish our picnic before going home. We had enjoyed our prawn and mayonnaise sandwiches during the Ladies Quarter-Final, but hadn’t felt hungry for our pork and apple sauce ones until after the Men’s Quarter-Final.
Sandwiches duly finished and Court One crowd mostly dispersed, we took our leave of Wimbledon towards the end of that Ladies Doubles match and wended our way home, “super tired but super happy”, as the young folk say.
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 PoljicakKilian 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.
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 HovdeElla 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 ConwayNo. 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 sandwichesElena 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 LoftusArabella 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 upEbden 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.
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 tennisNot so ready to watch tennisLadies’ 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 BoysThis must have been Janie’s fifth attempt at a double-selfie
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.
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!
We thought we’d failed to get tickets in the Wimbledon ballot this year. Janie and I had heard from several people that they or their loved ones had secured something. Odds are that you miss out more often than not, so we thought that was that.
But I suppose that most of the seats that come up in the public ballot are week one seats and that Wimbledon send out the week two letters the following week.
So, a few days after we had agreed that 2018 had been a miss, Janie announced that an envelope had just arrived from Wimbledon and that she’d let me open it.
OMG, we’ve got centre court tickets for Ladies’ Semi-Finals Day.
Janie was so excited; in truth we were both very excited.
A few weeks later the tickets themselves came through and turned out to be very good ones – Row F; near to commentary boxes and the Royal Box – just over our right shoulders above us.
…but second Thursday felt almost like hitting the jackpot.
I took on picnic duties again (that kinda makes sense for midweek Wimbledon), producing smoked salmon in poppy-seed bagels and prosciutto muffins as the centre-pieces for centre court. A Single Estate Villa Maria Sauv Blanc and an Aussie “Daydream” Pinot Noir (the latter partly surviving for another day).
I studied the order of play carefully when it came through and suggested that we aim to get to Wimbledon early enough to catch a little bit of juniors action on one of the larger outer courts before the main event.
We plugged for Court 18, where a couple of girls with similar rankings, Xiyu Wang & Cori Gauff, were doing battle:
Surprisingly good quality tennis
Gauff, who looked like Venus Williams’s mini-me in style of play and demeanour, took the first set and was well up in the second, before Xiyu Wang started to turn the match around.
Thinking about the turn around
Don’t confuse Xiyu Wang with her doubles partner, Xinyu Wang. That would be foolish of you. Also don’t assume that they must be sisters. They were born about 6 months apart which made the “must be sisters” theory bite the dust, unless an awful lot of artificial intervention was involved. The Wang pair went on to win the girls doubles title, while Cori Gauff, who turned out to be only 14 years old, really is a rising star, so remember where you heard these names first.
At the end of the second set on Court 18, we decided it was time to freshen up and progress to centre court in good time for the first semi-final.
Janie’s choices of photographers from the crowd was somewhat flawed. The first lady had the shakes so much that her efforts were very blurry indeed. Then one person somehow pressed the video button for a few seconds rather than the simple shutter release. It sort-of looks like one of those Harry Potter photos:
Younger people in the crowd wanted nothing to do with having people take pictures for them – it is all about selfies and selfie-sticks these days – so my offers reciprocally to take pictures were rejected.
We chatted with a very nice lady next to us, Carolyn, and her friend, Deana, who had come all the way from Yorkshire for the tennis. They helped Janie do some celebrity spotting in the neighbouring Royal Box.
Janie spotted Cliff enjoying the privacy of the Royal Box
With you I am Bjorn again?
Billie Jean – who is not my lover…
We enjoyed some snacks and a glass of wine.Why were we here? Oh yes, tennis. Here come some players:
Jelena Ostopenko and Angelique Kerber
Ostopenko came out all guns blazing, but that is not usually the way to best Kerber and so it proved that day:
Kerber kept her cool
We had time to eat our smoked salmon in poppy seed bagels during that match; just about.
Next up: Serena Williams against Julia Goerges. We’d never seen Serena play live before, although we have seen Venus more than once at Wimbledon.
Get ready…
…Julia got set, but took no sets…
…Serena powered her way through the match; Julia seemed overawed…
…thank you, ma’am.
A Wimbledon summary vid shows some glimpses here:
In truth the semi-finals had been short and one-sided, but there was plenty of entertainment to come. I went for a leg-stretching stroll at that juncture, having been assured by a steward that the mixed doubles was at least 20-25 minutes away. So I leg-stretched for that period of time, looking at one or two outer courts and chatting idly with one of the volunteer stewards there.
On my return, the mixed doubles quarter final had started. Mercifully Janie had taken some snaps of the players arriving and starting. It was a young British pair; Jay Clarke & Harriet Dart, taking on a far more experienced, seeded pair – Juan Sebastian Cabal and Abigail Spears. The thing is, though, that no-one seemed able to tell these youngsters that they weren’t supposed to beat the more experienced players.
Shhh…let’s try to win.
Jay’s entourage to the right – dad Errol just visible (and more audible)
Heck, these kids can play
Smiles even in defeat
A semi-final place – very promising signs from young Clarke and Dart. I was impressed especially by Clarke in the days and weeks leading up to our visit but on the day I was especially impressed by Dart, who looks a very natural doubles player. Jay Clarke might go on to excel at either singles or doubles or even both; at 19 he seems a very complete player already.
Towards the end of the mixed doubles, the seats vacated by a rather grumpy couple in front of us were taken up by a very friendly couple who had come from Bristol to see the Court One action and were thrilled to have managed to grab a couple of £10 end of day returns to get to see some action on the Centre Court.
All three fixtures so far had been quite short matches, so the authorities laid on some entertainment for us in the form of a bonus match; Gentlemen’s Invitation Doubles. The couple in front of us were thrilled to get to see an extra match; she described it as a dream come true.
Mark Philippoussis and Tommy Haas both still look well fit
Sebastian Grosjean and Fernando Gonzalez not so much
Many years ago some kids in the park mistook me for Sebastian Grosjean while I was playing with Janie. I had no beard in those days and Grosjean did sport a bandana in a similar style to mine if I recall correctly. Back then, the tennis comparison seemed absurd, but now, looking at a chunkier, less agile Grosjean, I’m not sure whether either of us should be flattered by that comparison.
Anyway, the guys played some fun tennis; mostly clowning around but some exhibition quality shots too, with the result never in doubt. Entertaining tennis was the winner.
Heck, we had a lovely day, as always when we go to Wimbledon. It wasn’t the most competitive day we have ever seen, nor was it one of the better days of this year’s championships, tournament-wise. But such a day at Wimbledon is very special indeed and we feel very lucky and privileged to have been able to enjoy it.
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.
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.
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.
But there were clearly going to be breaks in the weather too, so I suggested a meet up time to Janie based on the forecast, which Janie felt was overly-optimistic…
…the upshot being that we missed the first 30-40 minutes or so of the first match on our court.
Still, in the end we got to see a surprising amount of tennis, not least the remainder of the second round match between David Ferrer and Roberto Bautista Agut. Below is the highlights reel from that game:
Then we saw most of the third round match between Petra Kvitova and Ekaterina Makarova. Below is the highlights reel for that game:
We’d done surprisingly well, tennis-wise. Also picnic-wise – I laid on a Big Al special picnic which pleased Janie no end.
This was a really super day. When we were applying for tickets, Janie and I debated long and hard about which tennis slot to attempt. I favoured No. 1 Court, as I thought it would improve our chance of success. But Janie’s theory was that she was only interested in Centre Court, as it is the only covered court and she wanted to be assured of play if we did secure tickets.
Thus we applied for quarter finals day on centre court – thus we were successful in our application.
Janie took responsibility for the sumptuous picnic and I planned the journey. We set off good and early to avoid the worst of the crowds and take in some atmosphere on arrival. I guess it was a strange mix of regular Wimbledon and London 2012 atmosphere for this tournament – but that’s “strange in a good way”.
We were treated to four quarter-finals; two women’s singles and two men’s singles:
the first match we saw was Victoria Azarenka beating Angelique Kerber, the last match of the day we saw Maria Sharapova beat Kim Clijsters – click here for women’s singles details;
between those matches, in the men’s singles, we saw Roger Federer beat John Isner and then Novak Djokovic beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga – click here for the men’s singles details.
It was a fabulous day of tennis.
A rather strange American man was sitting next to us, who kept saying “that’s amazing…that’s incredible” whenever one of the players won a point with a good shot or when there was a good rally…which really was quite often. It turned out that the man is a huge tennis fan and goes a lot, so he shouldn’t be quite so continuously astounded by good play in my view, but there you are.
Janie realised that she had a real taste for Wimbledon, so picked up instructions for applying for forms in the Wimbledon ballot, which she has done each year since 2012 with (at the time of writing, in 2016) remarkable success, getting good No. 1 Court tickets two years out of those four. A small but significant Olympic legacy for us.
