Date: 7/2/98

On Tuesday, I arose at the obscene hour of 9AM, my body refusing to sleep longer. I made it to breakfast at my hotel for the first (and what has so far been the only) time during my stay in London. I then wandered to Wimbledon, arriving around 10:45 or 11. There were vast crowds, and I didn't think I had much chance, figuring the die hard fans would have been there for hours already. It turned out, thanks to providence, that the gates had only opened at 10:30 - great! Getting a ticket turned out to be quite easy, if you were willing to shell out $60, so I did. I am going to babble a lot about Wimbledon and tennis now, so if you don't care about such things, prepare to skip a lot. Don't worry, I will talk about expensive lettuce and the two german girls who were definitely not 19 later.

For those of you not familiar with the layout of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (also known as "Wimbledon"), there are two main courts surrounded by stadium style seating: Centre Court and Court 1. Court 2 also has a fair amount of seating. These 3 courts had most of the important matches (I think all the mens and womens singles happened there), and there were lots of other courts for things like the Boys and Girls championship, doubles, the over 35 groups, and so forth. On the smaller courts, you were right next to the action, with an amazing view. Even in the stadiums, you could see the action perfectly well.

My ticket was for Court 1, and it gave me a seat there, let me queue for standing room on court 2, and go to any other court except centre court. Court 1 had two matches I had decided I wanted to see: Van Roost vs. Vicario (womens singles tournament) and Pete Sampras (last years wimbledon champ) vs. S. Grosjean (mens singles tournament). Both matches, and in fact all of the days singles matches, were to winnow 16 down to 8, and would have taken place earlier except for rain. Speaking of rain, the day was lovely, with no horrid british precipitation to dampen the festivities.

Those matches started at 12, and there was a match featuring Hingis (who won the womens tournament at wimbledon last year) at 11, on court 2, so I went there hoping for standing room seats. No way, it was totally packed, everyone else wanted to see it too, so I gave up. All of the important matches were on Centre court, or courts 1 and 2, so I was basically only going to get to see the two I had seats for. That was fine, no complaints, so I went and sat down.

The kids who race after the balls rock! Wow! It looks more fun than driving the Zamboni. The tennis courts are grass, and the areas that are worn are: Where the judges stand (a ways back from the play, on both sides), the area the players are in most of the time (just behind the rectangle of play), and two little circles at the sides of the net where the ballboys sit. Also the refs are really funny, there are three on each side, and they have prescribed poses. When play is not happening, they stand with feet a little more than shoulder width apart, back straight, hands clasped behind their back. As a player is about to serve, they lean forward, bending at the waist, putting their hands on their thighs just above the knees. Imagine 6 dressed-up brits, all looking very pompous and old fashioned, all doing this at exactly the same moment. It was hilarious. There were some variations in how much people leaned, and they didn't always do it at exactly the same moment, but when they did it was quite funny indeed.

It was way fun to watch, by the end of the first match I was planning to return (I think I will go back Thursday). Sanchez Vicario beat Dominique Van Roost 2 sets to one in the first match. I had predicted her victory from how they looked in the warm up, but as she was seeded higher (5 as opposed to 15) it wasn't too surprising.

After watching the second match, as Sampras sent down Grosjean in straight sets, I realized that Men's and Women's Tennis are very, very different. I enjoyed the women's a lot, and the first mens set was incredibly boring. Sampras won 6-3, and in only *one* of the games did the person not serving win. Ace, Ace, Ace. Aces are absolutely pointless to watch. Ok, so he can hit the tennis ball faster than I or the other player can see it. So what? I realized that mens matches are best out of 5 while womens are best out of 3 not because tennis cares more about men, or thinks they are more variable or something, but just to make the matches the same length because the mens games go by so fast because there aren't very many volleys. It seems as tho the men are more better at hitting the ball harder than they are better at running faster (compared to the women).

Now I will be the first to admit that I am judging the entire sport of tennis based on two matches, and it may be that I have seen a biased sample. Maybe Sampras is just a really good server. Anyway, after the first set, things got more interesting. Games began to be won less by the server, and there was actually some volleying. The men are a lot faster than the women, and they can make much more amazing recoveries and have more awesome volleys, its just that it doesn't happen very often. I enjoyed the rest of the match, Sampras winning as expected. The women's 3-set match had taken about 2 hours, the mens 3-set match only 1:15.

I was totally uninterested in watching doubles, which the rest of the matches on my court were, and all the other exciting matches (Venus Williams, Hingis, Novotna) had happened already on other courts, so I headed home. Doubles in tennis seems so silly, tennis courts are a good size for one person a side. Its like playing air hockey or something doubles.

So wimbledon was expensive but enjoyable, and my only regret was that Treasa had not been able to stay a couple more days to see it with me, her being an actual tennis player and fan and all.

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