The Deuce Club, 7.10

By Heidi Kim, TW Contributing Writer

Unwilling to let go of Wimbledon?  Suffering from post-Wimby letdown?  Look no further, but read on for tales of queuing glory.  Or semi-glory.  The real glory belongs to heroes like Ali C, who queued in the wee hours of the morning.

I, on the other hand, spent the morning of second Monday at the Wallace Collection, a fine museum near Bond and Oxford Streets, assuming that nobody with a grounds pass would leave the grounds till at least one center court match was over.  Around 2:30pm, I got on the Tube to Southfields Station (NOT the Wimbledon stops!) and walked down to the grounds, rather than taking the shuttle bus that costs two pounds.  It was a walk well worth it, as I got a free energy bar and met a friendly Aussie named Demian, whose little brother had told him on the phone that he had to go see Fed-Hewitt.  Demian expressed his hopes of seeing the match.  I, startled, said, "Won't it be over already?"  Such was my faith, such was his.  You know who turned out to be right.

In any case, it was a moot point, as it would take us several more hours until we actually entered the grounds.  Don't afternoon-queue when the national favorite is playing!

You line up amid the beautiful green fields outside the All-England Tennis Club, entering via a corridor of caricatures, where a steward hands you a numbered queue card and a guide to queuing.  It overlooks a golf course and the car park, and winds past a very clean bathroom trailer.  Far off is the promised land, i.e. the white security tent.

Lucky it's so pleasant, as Demian, the two Croydon girls Melissa and Hallie behind us, and I ended up chatting for hours about tennis and travel as we waited for people to exit the grounds.  We got in maybe around 5:45 or 6pm (fourteen pounds if you get in past 5pm), grabbed drinks at the bar (a soda for two pounds!  four dollars!) and scooted over to Court 18 of Jankovic helicopter fame, where we got seats for Bob Bryan and Sam Stosur's doubles match.  Hope was high as we heard that Verdasco-Lopez's doubles match was next, but they gave Bjorkman-Ullyett the walkover, so we settled in peaceably for Sania Mirza and Bethanie Mattek's doubles match, as I mentioned last week.  My fellow queuers all floated off at some point, so by the end I was alone, cheering Mattek on.

Afterwards, I grabbed a spot at the very edge of Henman Hill, where I could scarcely see the screen.  A Brit next to me expressed his dismay over the fading light, but it didn't matter, as from my limited vantage point it seemed that Gasquet was losing heart and strokes quite fast enough.

All in all, a very nice experience.  The place does feel considerably smaller than Flushing Meadows (which it is).  But they manage the crowd very nicely, and the crowd behaves so very well.  Remember the women chattering behind me at the US Open last year?  I still haven't managed to forget.  But none of that at Wimbledon, thank you very much!

A random observation: I think they must match their ballboys and ballgirls for height, at least in shifts, or else it was highly coincidental.

As always, this is the dedicated off-topic thread, so feel free to de-stress post-Wimby here, or else ponder your own future queuing adventures.