Wimbledon: Torturous Thursday

I arrived for my yearly sojourn to the home of British tennis at around 11am. I usually go on Monday and Tuesday during the first week but this year I'm going on Thursday and Friday to meet up with different friends.

I was due to meet R but he and his girlfriend decided to arrrive at 7am to queue for tickets. That's like hard work for me. By the time, I had joined the queue, I was told that I might get in at 4-5pm. I thought the stewards were trying to put me on. I texted R and he said he had to queue 3 hours and was now in a good seat.

The queue moved slowly and as predicted, instead of the usual 1-2 hour wait in the past, I did have to wait 5.5 hours and I didn't get in till 4:30pm.

I think the wait was a lot longer for lots of reasons:

• The South queue had been abolished. In theory that should have made no difference have the number of the ticket booths was unchanged but I think there was a difference
• Overnight queuers were now allowed to camp in the quiet and comfortable surroundings of Wimbledon Park rather than on the noisy and hard pavements of Southfields.
• It was sunny and warm
• It was getting to the end of the week and I'm sure people were starting long weekends with a spot of tennis watching
• The Brits were playing - Andy Murray & Chris Eaton were drawn today

I did manage to catch Jonas Bjorkman and Alicia Molik play in the mixed doubles, Sebastian Grosjean lose against Richard Gasquet and the Williams sisters triumph in the doubles. R saw Sharapova and Eaton lose.

I'm going to have to think about what to do next year if I don't score a ballot ticket - either an early start or maybe crash at J's place.