More than 9,000 people had descended on Wimbledon Park hoping to bag a ticket to the tennis championships, according to an event steward. Many camped overnight in tents or arrived in the early hours of Monday morning. The park was filled with people relaxing on picnic blankets, playing games and cracking open cans of beer and bottles of prosecco.
Birthday Celebration in the Queue
Civil servant Tom Spencer joined the queue for the tournament on Sunday afternoon, with friends gathered to celebrate his birthday wearing colourful party hats. Mr Spencer, from Finsbury Park, north London, said it was his idea to celebrate his 26th birthday – which has fallen on the first day of the tournament – trying to secure tickets. He said: “I looked up when Wimbledon was on and it happened to coincide with my birthday, so I thought, ‘right, that’s the perfect excuse’. “I was going to go anyway, but this was a good opportunity to get loads of people there together, and, to some extent, it’s free camping in London, essentially. And the facilities are pretty good – no showers, though.”
Mr Spencer said he and his friends had passed the time with “lots of drinks” and takeaway pizza – an order they waited two hours for. He added: “I just like going there (Wimbledon) for the coffee and having a beer and watching it. I think we’re slightly short of the big tickets. I saw Emma Raducanu dropped out, that would have been really good.” The British number one pulled out of Wimbledon on Sunday evening, after a scan showed a leg injury she had been trying to overcome had become a stress fracture.
International Visitors and Early Arrivals
Student Hannah Turcinova travelled to the tournament from the Czech Republic, arriving in the queue at 2pm on Sunday – the earliest people are asked to arrive. Ms Turcinova, 19, said: “We came at 2pm, and we thought there would be no-one. That was the original time on the website… and it was written, ‘please don’t come before this time’. So next time, we’re definitely going to come in the morning.” She added: “It (camping) was a pleasant experience. People are just coming around you and want to chat. Very lovely. Nobody’s trying to get in front of you, everyone’s just at their side.”
Early Wake-Up and Cold Nights
Sam Shepherd, from Penrith, Cumbria, said her and her friends had spent much of their time joining queues for other things, such as coffee or luggage storage. Ms Shepherd, 53, arrived at 3pm on Sunday and camped overnight, enjoying a “good atmosphere”, but not the early wake-up call from stewards. She said: “They did wake us up half-an-hour early, they woke us up at 5am. They come round and go, ‘morning, everybody up, get your tents packed away’.” She recommended: “I would recommend a blackout tent – it’s quite nice (keeping it) dark still.”
Temperatures fell below 20C in Wimbledon on Monday morning, a far cry from the temperatures seen in the capital last week, when the UK’s record for the hottest June day was broken three days in a row. Head chef Jeremy Mangalindan said he had been caught out by the recent heatwave when it came to packing for his overnight camp. Mr Mangalidan, from Brentford, west London, said: “It got colder in the middle of the night. After this little heatwave, I didn’t expect that. I didn’t even bring a jumper.”
Spontaneous Decisions
A woman who did not want to be named said she was supposed to be at work on Monday but made a spontaneous decision to join the queue overnight instead, arriving at 3am. She said: “I’m supposed to be at work today, but my cousin’s come in from Vancouver and she’s a really big tennis fan. She’s visiting family in London, so I thought, ‘let’s make this happen for her’.” She added: “I only have one sleeping bag, and we don’t know where it is… so we just got mats and some blankets, and we slept on the ground. It was quite cold actually.”
