Monday, July 25, 2016
Tennis, Anyone?
“In the good old summer
time…”
It’s baseball, hot dogs,
apple pie…all of those things, and more.
And tennis, of course.
This is the week of the Rogers Canada Toronto Montreal London Wimbledon . I had the great fortune to be there, for a fine
afternoon. I will share a few things that I learned on the excursion, in the
hope that you will also get the opportunity to visit tennis’s greatest venue.
The first thing that we
learned was that you do not go to the Wimbledon stop on the tube. The courts are more accessible from
an earlier stop. By the way, it is a good idea to buy a special travel card
called an “Oyster Card”. It gets you through the turnstiles quickly, and saves
you a ton of money. Once you arrive at the stop, you follow the crowd, and read
the signs that say “Five Minutes to the Courts”. That is, if you are a young
Roger Bannister!
Then there is the matter
of THE QUEUE. It is simply a method to provide the possibility of
securing “Premium Tickets on the day of play”. The directions in the booklet
indicate that if you decide to queue overnight, the stewards will awaken you at
6:00am . We had decided to go to the matches on Thursday, and
figured it might be a tough ticket.
How wrong we were! We
paraded right up to the ticket window and were offered two choices: general
admission, which would allow us to tour the grounds, and sit on the grass to
watch a big screen; or better still, to purchase seats at court level for Court
Number One, for 58 pounds each.
Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza
We saw three fine matches,
all quarter finals: Ladies’ Doubles, Mixed Doubles, and Men’s Doubles. Martina
Hingis was the defending champion in mixed Doubles. She and her partner Leander
Paes from India UK
As was a certain Andy
Murray, who emerged as the Men’s Singles Champion, much to our dismay. He played
Milos Raonic in the final, and breezed to victory. Murray
Raonic is playing in the
Rogers Cup this week in Toronto, as is Novak Djokovic, the number one player in
the world. They are both in the same grouping, and may meet in the semi-final.
No matter. There will be some great tennis this week on the grounds at York University
I took the opportunity to
watch some wheelchair tennis as well. Pretty incredible stuff. Great shots,
fine returns. Gordon Reid, the number four seed from the UK, took the
championship.
It is truly “Tennis Week”
in London
James Hurst
July 25, 2016.
# posted by James Hurst @ 3:42 PM 
