An afternoon at Wimbledon 2007

Wimbledon 2007 - The Boys doubles final, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

I had never been to Wimbledon before, but today was as good a day as any to make my first visit. Men's final day with Roger Federer trying to equal Bjorn Borg's record of five consecutive wins, against the young whipper snapper Rafa Nadal... and what a final it was. A superb five setter, with Roger Federer staring deeat in the face as he was 15-40 down in the final set to give Nadal a chance to go 3-1, with a break. Well, Federer came back and won that game and evrey other game of the match, each one more easily than the last to take his fifth champioship, with a wonderful rally to finish off this epic.

A good thing that the match lasted so long as it was after 5 that we were allowed in, for the princely sum of three pounds, having waited an hour or so in the queue listening to the third and fourth sets, before watching the last set on Henman Hill with thousands of others. Still an amazing atmosphere for a big screen. There was a chance ot get into Centre Court afterwards with many poeple leaving after the Men's Final but I was too afraid to ask anyone for their tickets and no-one seemed to be offerimng them either. There was a possibility to buy resale tiockets but in typical English fashion, there was a massive queue in front of one window to buy such tickets for five pounds. A good investment for anyone quick enough and well enough dressed as a Brit actually won! Jamie Murray won the MIxed Doubles with Elena Jankovic, the first Brit to win a Wimbledon title in 20 years!

As it happened, I reckoned that the queue was so slow that the match would be finished before getting one's hands on a ticket so decided to watch the end of the Boys Doubles final between Daniel Lopez and Mateo Trevisan of Italy against Roman Jebavy and Martin Klizan each of one part of former Czechoslovakia. Again, a thrilling match, with the Italians winning the match tie-break, after having had a match point against them. It was on one of the smaller outer courts and so it was possible ot get very close to the players and even hear them cursing!

A great day and a great induction to the phenomenon which are The Championships at Wimbledon.