Wimbledon

What: The most pres­ti­gious and old­est of Tennis’s four Grand Slams, the Wim­ble­don cham­pi­onships – or sim­ply Wim­ble­don – is the world’s pre­mier ten­nis event, as over the course of two weeks in Eng­lish Sum­mer 128 of the worlds best ten­nis play­ers, com­bined with 64 dou­ble teams bat­tle it out in a elim­i­na­tion tour­na­ment to be crowned the best in the world.

Accom­pa­nied with tra­di­tion­al Eng­lish pomp, includ­ing a strict all white dress code for play­ers and a notable lack of spon­sor­ship – Wim­ble­don also fea­tures the best of Eng­lish Sum­mer cui­sine, most notably the large con­sump­tion of straw­ber­ries and cream – with some 35,000 kgs of straw­ber­ries and 10 litres of cream con­sumed each year, which com­bined with the world-class ten­nis action on the Wim­ble­don grass help make this an ace of an event.

When: Wim­ble­don takes place each year in British sum­mer, with the tour­na­ment begin­ning on the last Mon­day in June or first Mon­day in July and last­ing for two weeks.

Where: Wim­ble­don takes place at the All Eng­land Lawn Ten­nis & Cro­quet Club in the bor­ough of Wim­ble­don in Lon­don. The are­na fea­tures 18 courts includ­ing the cen­tre court where the finals and big match­es will be con­test­ed and enough room to allow spec­ta­tors to wan­der through the sta­dia and observe the action from a per­fect­ly placed Eng­lish hill known as ‘Mur­ray Mound.’

Dura­tion: The tour­na­ment lasts for two weeks, with the doors to the Wim­ble­don grounds open­ing at 10:30am each day and play begin­ning at 11:30am on the non-main courts and at 1pm on the main courts – with the final match­es being held on the last week­end of the tour­na­ment and begin­ning at 2pm and play going on till the end of the games or 9pm.

If plan­ning a vis­it to see the most action – ‘man­ic Mon­day’ the sec­ond Mon­day of the event is the busiest day with all last 16 ties tak­ing place on the same day – giv­ing a unique chance to watch the best 32 ten­nis play­ers in the world in each cat­e­go­ry bat­tle it out.

Tick­ets: Unfor­tu­nate­ly tick­ets for Wim­ble­don are noto­ri­ous­ly dif­fi­cult to get hold off, with the best option being sign­ing up to the Wim­ble­don pub­lic bal­lot run by the All Eng­land Lawn Ten­nis and Cro­quet Club [https://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/tickets/index.html] and sub­mit­ting an appli­ca­tion for the draw for tick­ets which take place at the start of the year – with tick­ets being non-trans­fer­able and priced at between £56 for the first day of Wim­ble­don and up to £190 for the final Sun­day

If unlucky on the draw you are left with two options, the first being to take your chances with returned tick­ets each after­noon – which often sees a num­ber of peo­ple camp­ing overnight for a chance at a tick­et, espe­cial­ly towards the lat­er stage of the tour­na­ment. Alter­na­tive­ly you can pur­chase a ground pass, which while not giv­ing you access to the games allows you to watch exhi­bi­tion match­es and take in the Wim­ble­don atmos­phere from up to £25 on the famous ‘Mur­ray Mound’ a hill over­look­ing the games filled with excit­ed rev­ellers and a large sup­ply of Pims.

Need to Know: Along­side the dif­fi­cul­ties in get­ting tick­ets and plan­ning the trip well in advance, it’s advised to be on your guard when trav­el­ling around Lon­don as the city has seen an upsurge in vio­lent crime recent­ly.

More Infor­ma­tion: For infor­ma­tion on the sched­ule, access to Wim­ble­don and to enter the tick­et draw vis­it the offi­cial Wim­ble­don ten­nis web­site at https://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/tickets/index.html%5D