A day at Wimbledon
I had to get up at some ridiculous hour but managed to be early enough in the queue for the first day of Wimbledon on Monday to get tickets for No 2 Court. Despite the rain I got to see a good 4 hours of tennis comprising 2 women’s singles matches and half of a men’s singles match.
The first women’s match was Martina Hingis (seeded 9th) against Naomi Cavaday (unseeded Brit). Cavaday was clearly the more powerful player, dominating the beginning of the first set, to Hingis’ obvious annoyance, and going on to win it 7-6. She didn’t have the technical ability or stamina of Hingis though and started to look exhausted about halfway through the second set which she lost 7-5 and had clearly had enough by the third set which she lost 6-0. I think if Cavaday could work on her stamina and play as well as she did in the first set then she might be able to get beyond the first round next year.
The second women’s match was Serena Williams (seeded 7th) against Lourdes Dominguez Lino (unseeded Spain). Despite a long run of double faults Williams took the match comfortably in straight sets 7-5, 6-0. She clearly wasn’t playing at her best but that was still good enough to best Dominguez Lino.
The men’s match was Feliciano Lopez (unseeded Spain) against Joshua Goodall (unseeded Brit). Goodall had a lot of support from the (by then diminished) crowd but the light started to fade, prompting both players to query the official as to how much longer they were going to carry on. Eventually some 10 minutes later the official asked the players if they wished to stop playing at which point they both pointed out that they’d been asking to stop for a while.
All in all it was enjoyable day, despite the weather. I took some photos which I’ll try and get onto flickr at some point. I think I’ll enter the ballot next year and see if I can get tickets in advance instead of queuing.