England

WIMBLEDON!!!

From Malaga, I flew into London to fly home, but I made sure I timed it so that I would be able to go see at least one day of Wimbledon. I went on the first day of the 2-week tournament and even then it was crazy! How it works is that after they have the general lottery for tickets, they have a certain number of tickets available to buy the day of. I think there was somewhere around 6,000 grounds passes available, which give you access to courts 3 through 18 or however many courts there are. Then there’s about 200 each for Center Court, Court 1, & Court 2. So I got up really early (probably the earliest of my whole trip) and caught the tube down to Wimbledon! The trains were packed as expected, and I got talking to an old man who had been to every Wimbledon for the past 60 years and used to be a chair umpire for the tournament.

Wimbledon 1

They even had the tube stop decorated like a tennis court!

Just to show how crazy it was there, I arrived a little after 8am and this is what it looked like already…

Wimbledon 2

To get tickets for the 3 main courts, you pretty much have to camp out overnight. It’s a good thing is was the end of June and it was nice out. I did meet some cool people in line, though. I finally got in around 1:00 in the afternoon right around when they were kicking off for the day.

Wimbledon 3

How it works with the grounds pass is that you can just walk up to any court (minus the 3 main ones) and wait for a seat to open up or just stand and watch. I saw a lot of good tennis on the first day even though I really didn’t get to see any of the top players, but I did get some good action shots of the players I did watch. I can’t remember who these players were, though.

Wimbledon 4

Wimbledon 5


Wimbledon 6

Wimbledon 7

More from the same match…

Wimbledon 8

Wimbledon 9

The most famous players I saw were Tommy Haas playing Alexander Peya and Tommy Robredo playing Luka Gregorc. This was a hell of a match, and Robredo ended up winning it. Here’s a couple pics from this match.

Wimbledon 10

Wimbledon 11

Wimbledon 12

Wimbledon 13

After getting my fill of tennis for about 7 hours, I headed back to my hostel and went out with my friends on my last night in Europe. Then I flew home the next afternoon, connecting in Chicago, and finally landing home in Detroit.

A GREAT END TO AN AMAZING TRIP!!!

Nick Huggins
written by: Nick Huggins
Follow me on Twitter: @MrNickHuggins or at https://www.Facebook.com/AdventurousPursuits!

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