Wimbledon: The mekka of Tennis

DAY ONE -
After experiencing the fact that there was actually a 5am, I set off and headed to Wimbledon from my accomodation in Shepherd's Bush. The journey went pretty smoothly and it wasn't long before I arrived at Wimbledon, but my excitement was rather restrained due to the fact I knew I'd be queuing alone for around about four hours. I'd like to speak to you of extraordinary entertainment that took place during the queuing session, but I'm afraid that's out of the question. There were quite a few freebies and several people selling newspapers. I did the only humane thing and turned on my walkman to listen to some music and try to relax and look forward to the tennis.

At 11:00 I entered the grounds. The excitment was huge and for about half hour I just wandered around the grounds just admiring the whole scenery. My next step was to venture into the practice courts. It took about 10-20 minutes to get into the practice courts, and I overheard some people speaking about Jelena Dokic. "I thought she was Australian," said one. "It says here that she's Yugoslavian." Clearly this person was an avid tennis maniac who follows the sport in great depth throughout the year.
"Nah, she's Yugoslavian now because her dad was banned from all the tours." Replied another professer of tennis. Someone had been taking stupid pills, and it reminded me of the fact that the real tennis fans couldn't get even a smidgen of the privelages that the Upper Class would receive. But it didn't get me down, play was starting before long, and there was much to look forward to, even if I was restricted to courts 2-19.
I noticed that Alicia Molik was playing Mary Pierce, but the court was totally packed, so I gave up trying to enter that court, and headed down to see a player I had a little interest in - Daja Bedanova. It was on a very small court, and I had a great seat. Daja (real name Daniela) trounced the Dutch lady Seda Noorlander 6-1 6-2, and I took some great pics. After the match I congratulated Daja and she thanked me, which was nice.

My next match was Anastasia Myskina v Eva Dyrberg. This was an amazing match that really could have gone either way. I was shocked at how well Dyrberg played, and I expected, and hoped that Myskina would have won it comfortobly in straight sets. Dyrberg took the first set, much to everyone's surprise, and an upset was looking possible. Myskina fired back in a professional manner in the second set, dropping just one game as she equaled things up. Myskina then looked in control, and at 5-1 in the final set, it was essentially all over. But Dyrberg found some inspiration from somewhere and brought it back to 5-5, much to everyone's disbelief. Myskina was going out unless she did something drastic. Luckily for her though, Dyrberg seemed unable to cope with the pressure that came with facing a seed in Wimbledon, and Myskina raised her game just enough to close out the final set. After the game, Eva Dyrberg looked a little out of it, so to speak. There were many security guards around her, and one of them said something like "make sure you stay with her." Dyrberg was pointed the way back into the players' building yet she still looked like she didn't understand. She turned and started to walk the other way and two security guards held her and turned her around. Finally, she looked like she was herself again, and went back to the players' building, closely watched by several people.

After the game I met up with a friend, and we were both really looking forward to the Jelena Dokic v Elena Tatarkova game. After some rescheduling and some confusion we finally took our places on court number three and awaited the players. Both of us expected Jelena to thrash the unknown Ukranian, but as always Jelena made things a little nervous for her fans, and struggled to victory with a less than convincing scoreline. After the match she signed the odd autograph and was taken away by about six security guards. To be honest, Jelena looked rather frightened as about twenty people ran after her looking for some recognition, but who wouldn't have been? It was a great experience to see one of my favourite players in person, and it really made me even more excited about what was in store for the rest of the week. I headed back to Shepherd's Bush with a sense of achievement, and went straight to bed since I had another hectic day in front of me.

DAY TWO -

I was running a little late on the second day of the Championshipa but I had just received news that three of my friends had 'kept me a place' in the hectic mass of people that's known as the 'Wimbledon Queue'. Which basically meant that I could enter the grounds after a mere one hour of queuing. Hallelujah, everything was good.

Like day one, we went to the practice courts to start the day, and briefly saw Barbara Schett warming up. She soon left the courts (probably sensing our arrival) and quite a few people ran down to the railings to get autographs. We joined the mass of people and I think one of us may have got the Schett autograph. I wasn't too concerned about getting the autograph, and decided on taking a few pictures. My instincts weren't the greatest since it was still early morning, though I did manage to take a few pictures that weren't too bad.

After this brief encounter with the Austrian, we decided to go and watch her first round match against the Zimbabwean Cara Black. For a moment, the match looked pretty close, and it was a difficult one to call, but Babsi came into her own as the game developed. She eventually triumphed with a 6-2 6-2 scoreline, leaving Cara to concentrate on her doubles for the next two weeks. Schett gave a few more autographs to her fans, but once again I used to the opportunity to take some pictures to remember the occasion, as opposed to a quick scribble on a piece of paper.

It scares me to think that I have no idea what we got up to after the Barbara Schett match. I have a sneaky feeling that we just waited by the players' building hoping to find some players, but I don't actually remember if we did come accross any players. Anyway, after this blank spot in my memory, we decided to watch Jana Kandarr v Tatiana Garbin. The match was pretty good to watch, and it was just great to get off our feet and sit down. The standard of the match was hardly great though. I remember thinking that I could have played some better shots than these women, and I'm Welsh!! However, we continued to cheer for Jana, and she came away with the result in two close sets.

Later, two of my friends were lucky enough to be given centre court tickets, which left my other friend and I to fend for ourselves in the outside courts. As the others enjoyed seeing Andre Agassi crash out of the championships, we were left with a pretty good consollation in seeing Yevgenny Kafelnikov play in a doubles match. He and his partner won the match, and it was a pretty decent and relaxing way to end the second day.

All in all, it was a fantastic first two days, and there was so much to look forward to the next day. Three of my favourite players were scheduled to play (Dokic, Bedanova, Myskina) and there was always going to be a chance of meeting some of them since they would be playing on the ground courts.