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