Shropshire Star

Here’s the view from the queue as tennis fans line up for Wimbledon 2017

Thousands faced fierce sun, rain, and little sleep for a place in the hallowed All England Club grounds.

Published
People queuing at Wimbledon (Adam Davy/PA)

July is here and tennis fans everywhere have flocked to the central shrine of their sport: the queues outside Wimbledon.

Thousands of fans braved the overnight chill and hunkered down in sleeping bags and tents over the weekend, hopeful of a courtside view, but the numbers were against them from the start.

We advise waiting until morning to queue for Ground Entry.

— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 2, 2017

Wimbledon officials tweeted on Sunday morning that more people were in the queue than there were places in Centre Court and Court One combined, but as the long July hours crawled by fellow revellers came in their droves.

There were the tent-setters:

— trey wingo (@wingoz) July 2, 2017

The ultra-optimists:

— tom jakeman (@tomjakeman) July 2, 2017

The rain-stayers:

— Liam Petch (@liampetch_) July 3, 2017

The patient:

— PHILosophy (@Phil_Ced) July 3, 2017

And the resigned:

— TennisPilot (@TennisPilot) July 3, 2017

“What’s so bad about that?”, you say? Well, there are always the elements to consider:

— The Queue (@TheWimbledonQ) July 2, 2017

After over 20 hours, a sleepless night, heat, cold, rain and sun, is it all worth it?

(Steve Paston/PA)
Centre Court in 2016 (Steve Paston/PA)
Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.