Dorothy and the 125th Anniversary Wimbledon-The Championships 2011

One of the most important timelines of our holiday was to be in London in mid june. This meant that Dorothy had two weeks in London at the same time as the 125^th anniversary Wimbledon tennis championships. Gary spent the time chasing steam trains, that may form a separate blog posting.

I (Dorothy) went to Wimbledon centre court on 3 different days.  I (Dorothy) checked the schedule of play before I arrived and this made it easy to know which courts the junior Australians would be playing.

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As play does not start on Centre court until 1pm, I had time to wander around the many outside courts. I watched the whole game of Andrew Whittington- Australian junior, and then in the late afternoon I watched Sam Stosur lose her first round game.

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The matches that I saw on centre court were Serena Williams, Roger Federer and Novak, they all went through their games easily.

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 So they were not great matches to watch but I still enjoyed seeing the great players on court and they made the game look so easy to play.  I also saw the match where Maria Sharapova won her game to go onto the Women’s final. 

PHOTO 2683 (above)warm up & 2705 (below)  trophy

My seats were all in the back rows but still good enough to see everything on the court, also on an angle which meant it was easy to see the ball at all times.  While I was walking around a large number of security staff walked passed and in the middle of them was a tennis player by the name of Rafal Nadal. He was easy to see as he was the one in white!  Then I watched matches on the outside courts, tried to watch mostly the Aussies.  I went to the Women’s Final and watched Maria Sharapova lose, it was a reasonable game and I was pleased to see the undog win, Petra Kvitova.

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Then I watched the finals on centre court of both the men’s and women’s doubles games and they were fast, it was really hard to follow the ball especially if they played at the net.  It was made special as Sam Stosur (Aussie) was playing but they could not beat their seeded opponents.

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The crowds of tennis spectators were all enjoying their strawberries ($5 or £2.50) or champagne, or Pimms, or for £15 ($30) you could enjoy a table service afternoon tea.  I just stayed with my Marks & Spencers supermarket pre packed sandwiches and drink (£2.50 or $5). 

When you arrive at the Southfield station it has green matting (to look like grass) laid out on the platform and lovely baskets of flowers to greet the Wimbledon spectator’s.

(PHOTO 2665 Station)

From the station you could either take a bus, taxi or 20 minute walk to the tennis by just following the crowds (and the ticket touts).

 (PHOTO 2585 bus)