Saturday's centre court debut

We'd missed the first few games on Centre Court but got to our seats in a change of ends and hadn't missed anything significant in the first match. Even though our seats were four rows from the back we had a good view. That was until the person in front of us arrived.

Obscuring our view

He had very big hair and amazingly upright posture (maybe he used to be a ball boy) such that our view was almost entirely obscured if we sat in a comfortable position. So we had to adopt some slightly unusual poses to see the play. It wasn't helped by this chap's girlfriend (at least I assume it was his girlfriend) who kept leaning into him to kiss / cuddle / whisper in his ear so that the view to that side of his head was also frequently obscured. They would have been able to get a hotel room (even a nice one) for considerably less than their tennis tickets. Nonetheless we managed to arrange ourselves adequately to see and they made frequent                                                                           breaks from their seats for the loos / snacks.

As for Alex and I we were snack prepared. This had the dual benefit of:

1. Not having to pay the extortionate prices for snacks within the grounds

2. Not having to faff around getting out and in of seats and thus not missing valuable tennis

Our array of snacks included mostly refined carbohydrates but with some health benefits:

• cold pizza. Which had tomato sauce on it (a useful source of lycopene I believe) and spinach on it (a source of iron)
• oaty biscuits (fibre)
• strawberries (actually healthy - plenty of vitamin c and also some manganese)
• chocolate bar (the one mostly involving honeycomb so relatively low fat)
• crisps (I can think of nothing nutritionally redeeming about these but they taste so good).

(As an aside one of the doubles’ players was sponsored by one of my favourite type of crisp - particularly the crinkly salt and vinegar ones.)

However, the main health benefit in the above is clearly the energy supply which is after all the second most important thing about food (the most important is that it tastes good).

The snacks were accompanied by plenty of fluids. Mainly water but also a traditional English summer's alcoholic beverage - conveniently (and bargainously compared to the bar prices) pre-mixed in a can. Fortunately the toilet facilities were excellent. Although the combination of refined carbohydrate and ethanol did make us a little sleepy. I caught a snap of Alex having a mini-doze but she made me delete it.

A traditional snack

The tennis itself alternated between excellent matches and excellent players. We saw 2 closely fought battles and in the other matches both the men’s and ladies' number 1 seeds played phenomenally and basically annihilated their opponents. In the ladies' my size differential approach to tennis success held true.

Djokovic serving to success

Lisicki v. Stosur

Williams beats a gracious Date-Krumm 6-2, 6-0

I also enjoyed watching and being part of the crowd: spotting the crazy outfits and cheering on the underdogs.

Diverse spectators

I loved the hats

We weren't in a rush to leave when play had finished, having the distinct advantage of not needing any public (or indeed private) transport to get back to Alex's. So despite there being mess everywhere else I cleared up all our rubbish (separately as recyclables or non) before we descended out of Centre Court to make our way back across South West London. At a slower pace to that by which we had arrived.

Saturday's Wimbledon arrival

I had a much less eventful trip to London than on my previous visit, arriving in Paddington on schedule and showing unusual efficiency in making connections, to reach my friend, Alex's, nearly an hour earlier than the trip planner had suggested. I already knew that I wouldn't have as earlier a start as I had feared because Alex had been successful in securing us centre court tickets so we wouldn't have to chance our luck in "The Queue".

Nonetheless we departed from Alex's just gone 9 in an effort to get seats for an early prime match on an outside court. Alex set off at a determined quick march across south west London. I delayed things by:

1. Being slow at walking (in comparison to Alex particularly given the discrepancy in our leg length)

2. Dithering in the supermarket whilst selecting item(s) to augment our picnic. In the end I didn't properly make a decision and got quite a few naughty treats

We made it into the grounds and settled into some empty seats on court 2. Until a man (allegedly from the fire brigade) came along and told us that it was tickets only and that we'd have to move before play started. So we cut our losses and debated where we'd be best off. I managed to persuade Alex that a doubles’ match on court 16 might be worth a watch. Not only is doubles’ good fun, but it would probably be our only opportunity to cheer on some Brits. (I do hope that I’ve got the apostrophes in the right places there.)

We got some seats in the front row which was great apart from the occasional wayward ball and frustrated player causing me concern.

A front row view

I enjoyed watching the line judges and ball boys/girls close up. Of particular note the there was a line judge who had more than a passing resemblance to a Bond villain (actually quite a few of them did and they all had these little sponge bags in which I've no idea they carried which made them look even more suspicious) and a ball boy who was stood so upright that he looked like he was going to do himself an injury.

As for the tennis itself I didn't hold out much hope for the Brits. I have some sort of mental equation in which the size differential between the players is a significant factor in the outcome of the match (the bigger player having the advantage). And the average sized Brits were playing two enormous guys from Eastern Europe. It was a really entertaining match and the Brits did brilliantly, winning in straight sets. So my mental equation is obviously invalid.

Fleming and Murray made it to the 3rd round

We stayed to watch the end of that match before heading off to find our seats on Centre Court.