Wimbledon Tennis Championships

The 2007 Wimbledon Tennis Championships start on Monday 25 June at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in southwest London. Wimbledon is probably the highlight of the summer sporting calendar in London, there’s wall to wall coverage, all the world’s best players are present and going to the Championships especially in the first week when better players are on the outside courts is a great day out.

There are 19 courts used for the Wimbledon Championships with the two main stadium style courts being Centre and No.1 courts. Tickets for these two courts are the most in demand as the top seeds will be playing on these and most are pre-sold by ballot, but 500 tickets each day for Centre, No.1 and No.2 courts are reserved for sale at the turnstiles. For the other 16 courts around 6,000 tickets are reserved for sale on the day and these allow you to wander from court to court including the No.2 Court standing enclosure. Tickets are sold strictly on the basis of one per person and payment is by cash only.

Here’s what Wimbledon says about queueing for tickets,
There are two queues for the turnstiles at Gate 3, one from the north and one from the south. Each queue has an equal allocation of tickets for Centre Court, No. 1 Court, No. 2 Court and Ground Admission. Please note that the queues can be extremely long.
For a ground pass, it is usually necessary to join the queue several hours before the grounds open. For a show court ticket, many people choose to queue overnight to maximise their chances of being able to purchase a ticket for Centre, No.1 or No.2 Court.

On your arrival at the end of the queue you will be issued with a Queue Card. This card is dated and numbered to show your position in the queue. It must be retained and will be checked on entry to the Grounds.
Wristbands, marked by court and with a detachable ‘court’ tally, will be offered to queuers according to the number of show court tickets available. On reaching the entrance kiosk, the tally must be detached and handed to the cashier who will issue one ticket for the court on the tally.

The grounds will open at 10.30a.m. each day. On Courts 2-19, play is provisionally scheduled to start at noon for at least the first eight days and then at 11.00a.m. for the Junior matches on the middle Saturday and during the second week. On Centre and No.1 Courts, play will start at 1.00p.m., except on the final two days when play on these courts will start at 2.00p.m.

Wimbledon features Men’s, Ladies’, Doubles, Mixed Doubles and Junior Championships, the first day’s play is restricted to the Men’s and Ladies’ singles. The All England Club is located on Church Road in Wimbledon, Southfields or Wimbledon Park are the nearest Tubes. Ticket prices vary as the tournament progresses, here’s the full price list.