Source :- THE AGE NEWS
London: There was chaos across the road from the All England club on Monday.
The stampede for the remaining Wimbledon tickets reached 10,000 people by 8.30am, forcing tournament officials to issue an urgent message for fans to reconsider joining “The Queue”, one of the grasscourt grand slam’s great traditions.
About 3000 of them spent the night before camping in two-person tents in Wimbledon Park, with the first 500 in line receiving centre court tickets and the next 1000 picking between show courts one and two.
‘The Queue’ is for those who miss out on the public ballot, which closed in September last year, but still want to see the world’s best tennis players at the sport’s most prestigious event.
It’s a five-minute walk from Southfields tube station, and a conga line of tennis fans, often with camping gear in tow, stream from there throughout the day with designs on Wimbledon tickets. A good tip is to follow the @ViewFromTheQ account on X for updates.
To have a chance of scoring the most coveted seats, they have to be willing to arrive by early afternoon the previous day – or late morning to be certain – and effectively queue for 24 hours. There are resale options to snaffle centre court tickets later in the day, but queuing early remains the best way to lock in a spot.
Texan Courtney Cadwell, who is holidaying in Europe with her husband Kevin and 13-year-old tennis-playing daughter Addison, calls it an “international sleepover”.
Event stewards wake campers up at about 5am to begin the final queuing process.
This beloved ritual, which has evolved across the years to be more structured and orderly with individual queue cards, continues daily until the final four days of the event.
Alex Magowan, his wife Tien Do, and Zac Sullivan, from Sydney via Wangaratta, were among those diehards this week. Macgowan and Do relocated to London a week ago for work, while Sullivan is the “resident tennis nerd” who grew up playing on grass.
They sneaked inside the first 500 for Thursday’s play.
“Zac just did an ultra-marathon in the Dolemites, and decided to cap off his trip with another marathon-of-sorts, the queue at Wimbledon,” Magowan said, as Do took the opportunity to doze nearby in their tent.
“Coming here feels like you’ve gone to church a bit, in a good way, but it’s very different to the Australian Open – very prim and proper, everything’s super traditional, and that’s part of it. It’s almost like, ‘You’re here to observe the tradition of tennis, and we’re not distracting you with activations and TV screens’.”
On this day, there is a soccer game being played between one winding queue and the village of tents on the opposite side, while some fans, such as London-based Russians Elena and Tatiana, borrowed badminton racquets to pass the time.
Others are huddled around iPads or mobile phones watching Harry Kane help England escape against the Democratic Republic of Congo at the World Cup.
In 2015 Thanasi Kokkinakis delivered pizza to fans at The Queue. This year, on Thursday, the Princess of Wales popped in.
“This is our first time in the tent. We used to just go in the normal queue [on the day], but this is a different experience, and we wanted centre court,” Elena said.
“Over the years we learned what to do [to get tickets], but it wasn’t as fun with the online thing. We wanted to enjoy the experience and feel like we got something for our effort.”
Elena and Tatiana are high school friends now in their 40s who are annual Wimbledon-goers. They did not want to risk missing out, so arrived before 11am on Wednesday. Their places in the queue? 219 and 220.
Max Howe, from Oxford, about a two-hour trip to the All England club, decided last weekend he wanted to attend Wimbledon for the first time, and would camp out in the queue for the chance to watch the Williams sisters on centre court.
He bought a two-man tent, as per queue rules – which forbid gazebos, barbecues and camping stoves – recruited his mum, Jacqueline, who lives five hours away in Newcastle, and the plans were set for a mother-and-son bonding session.
The idea was to join the queue at noon, to ensure they were inside the cut-off for the centre court allotment.
However, expecting trains to be on time, and without drama, is a dangerous game. After multiple cancellations on his journey, Howe gave up and ordered an Uber. The panic was real. Queue rules state that everyone must be present, so Jacqueline could not hold her son’s spot.
“It was about half-one [1.30pm] by the time we got here, and Max wanted desperately to be in the 500,” Jacqueline said.
“He was listening to everybody’s numbers, then working out how many were on the road and doing his calculations. He said, ‘I think we’re about 482’.”
Howe was close: they were 485 and 486. But then news broke about Serena Williams’ knee injury casting doubt on her doubles reunion with Venus after almost four years away from the sport.
There ended up being a bigger problem. The Williams sisters were not on Thursday’s order of play, meaning the Howes had to settle for defending champion Iga Swiatek, Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini and Australian Open winner Elena Rybakina as the headline acts.
Addison Cadwell, who is part of Australian tennis legend John Newcombe’s academy in Texas, was not as picky after her parents surprised her by adding London – and specifically Wimbledon – to their itinerary.
“I just want to see some great tennis,” Cadwell said. “I love the whole experience. I’m excited to camp overnight, and we’ve met some great families here.”
Sullivan was camping for the second time in a matter of days when he spoke to this masthead. On the previous occasion, he was No.1132 in the queue, so he missed out initially on centre court tickets.
But he registered at the Resale Kiosk, where ticket-holders can pick up centre court upgrades from fans who leave early. Resale tickets cost only £15 (about $29) for centre court and £10 ($19.30) for courts one and two, with those proceeds going to charity.
Sullivan was fortunate enough to pick up a ticket to watch Australia’s Maya Joint defeat Serena Williams in her celebrated return to Wimbledon’s centre court, where she won seven singles titles.
“It was amazing, it was electric, and it was so loud, although, to be honest, I was fighting back a bit of sleep from being in the queue all day,” Sullivan said.
“It’s a bit of a slog being in the queue – I’m not going to lie – but it’s worth it.”
Marc McGowan travelled to London with Tennis Australia’s support.
Watch Wimbledon from 7.30pm (AEST) nightly on the Nine Network and Stan Sport.
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