a year round event (Tennis in General)

Member Name: jimmybob

Product:	Tennis in General
Date:	14/10/01 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: electric atmosphere, traditions

Disadvantages: tickets are hard to get

Even though at the current time Britain only have two players inside the top 100, with a few just outside, we still hold one of the top four tennising annual events. Wimbledon is held every year, and is the only grand slam left that is still played on the traditional grass surface.

So this means preparing the event is a year round process, as the grass courts have to be properly grown and kept to a perfect standard. Of course, the tennis club doesn't close after the big two week event. The courts are still open to members, but the number of playing members is very few, due to the fact that its very expensive, and that you have to be invited.

There are 20 courts at Wimbledon, and many more grass practising courts so the preparation work is a long process. The chief gardener has a very hard task of making sure the surface is flat all round, especially nearing the weeks of the championships.

But when the championships are under way, managing the courts is an extremely difficult process. First of all, all the ground staff need to be properly trained so that during the inevitable rain periods, the grass is kept dry so that play can be resumed as quickly as possible. There is increasing pressure to do this as there is a hell of a lot of matches to get through each day. And of course, keeping the surface smooth without bumps (which do annoy the players some what), is made even more of a task, when some of the top players feel it necessary to smash their rackets into the ground when they play one bad shot. Without meaning to point fingers, Marat safin is probably the chief offender at doing this. This wouldn't really matter if it happened at the U.S Open because making indentations in concrete is hard with a tennis racket.

So anyway onto the actual championships. Gaining tickets to the tournament is no easy task. Tickets for seats in either of the two main courts (centre court and number one court) are very expensive and hard
to get. The easiest way to get them is to enter yourself into a draw, 6 months prior to the tournament, to try and see if you can win the right to buy a pair of tickets. Or you could become a member of any tennis club, most of which offer a exclusive draw to win tickets to its members.
However if you are unlucky with this approach there is another, although it doesn't guarantee tickets to the show courts. If you cue up for about 12 hours in advance, you may be able to purchase one of these tickets. but otherwise you'll have to settle for a grounds pass. This is the way I usually get into Wimbledon, and although you can't get into the centre court, court number one and two, you can get into the rest. And you still get big named players on the outside courts, believe me.

Food and drink are very expensive when buying them at Wimbledon, so I would advise you bring a packed lunch with plenty of drink, and an umbrella if you can fit it in your bag. I would always leave enough room for a program, because it makes good reading when your waiting to see a match. You see, you can't reserve seats on a grounds pass, so if theres a certain match you want to watch, you have to sit it out until it comes on.

To the players themselves, I'm sure your all aware of how British players have done recently at Wimbledon. Every year it seams that Tim Henna and Greg Rusedski go out of their way to put us through agony. And this year there were even brave performances from less known British player like Barry Cowan, Martin Lee, Arvind Parmar and Jamie Delgado. But when henman played Ivanisevic this year, I had to turn off the TV because I couldn't take the pressure. But I'm sure eventually (hopefully in my lifetime) there will be a British champion, because the support we give to our own players is so immense, it should be enough to lift them to glory one day

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