Thursday, June 30, 2005
Wimbledon
It's Wimbledon 2005 - the Finals are this weekend. Every year I try to follow the tournament as best I can - but I don't follow it nearly as rabidly as I did when I was younger. I was a total tennis groupie.
In the Summer of 1989 I spent a month in England. It was my first trip to Europe and extremely exciting. But the hightlight by far has to have been my time at Wimbledon.
I was traveling with my friend Jane, who is also a tennis fan. She had been to Wimby the year before - she had "queued up" an entire day to get in the grounds late in the afternoon. We had plans to definitely go see the tennis - but we had something special - Centre Court tickets for the opening day! We were seated in row Q behind the Royal Box. It was a surreal day - we got to see Fergie, Stefan Edberg and Jimmy Conners.
On that first day we were already in tennis heaven. I had been to the US Open the year before and seen many of the then-famous players, but this was Wimbledon. It looked just like it was supposed to - even more so. Green ivy everywhere, smartly dressed spectators and strawberry and cream vendors.
We only had tickets for the first day, but our plan was to queue up for the next two days play. We did and got general admission passes. The second day of the tournament is known as "ladies day" so we weren't sure if we would see any of our favorite male players - but we did - oh we did. We had quickly discovered that the absolute best place to be in entrance near the locker rooms. We stood there for hours just waiting for our favorites. We had seen just about every one we could dream of - up close and then Stefan Edberg arrived. We were beside ourselves with giddiness.
In the Summer of 1989 I spent a month in England. It was my first trip to Europe and extremely exciting. But the hightlight by far has to have been my time at Wimbledon.
I was traveling with my friend Jane, who is also a tennis fan. She had been to Wimby the year before - she had "queued up" an entire day to get in the grounds late in the afternoon. We had plans to definitely go see the tennis - but we had something special - Centre Court tickets for the opening day! We were seated in row Q behind the Royal Box. It was a surreal day - we got to see Fergie, Stefan Edberg and Jimmy Conners.
On that first day we were already in tennis heaven. I had been to the US Open the year before and seen many of the then-famous players, but this was Wimbledon. It looked just like it was supposed to - even more so. Green ivy everywhere, smartly dressed spectators and strawberry and cream vendors.
We only had tickets for the first day, but our plan was to queue up for the next two days play. We did and got general admission passes. The second day of the tournament is known as "ladies day" so we weren't sure if we would see any of our favorite male players - but we did - oh we did. We had quickly discovered that the absolute best place to be in entrance near the locker rooms. We stood there for hours just waiting for our favorites. We had seen just about every one we could dream of - up close and then Stefan Edberg arrived. We were beside ourselves with giddiness.
# posted by PSUgirl @ 6:08 AM 
