We’ve been lucky enough to visit three of the four tennis Grand slam events:

• 2008 French Open photos 1, photos 2
• 2013 Australian Open 
• 2014 US Open

Missing from the list is Wimbledon, and we’ve been trying to get tickets for years… well, this April we finally scored a pair of tickets for the Centre Court third round through the official secondary market.

Play starts at 11am on the outer courts, and 1:30pm on Centre Court. We figured there would be a queue right at opening, so we left the hotel at 11am. The tube was full of smartly dressed folks, and we only had a few stops to Southfields. The platform was fairly crowded, but calm and organized with announcements directing people to walk through with paper tickets or tap out with payment cards. Once out of the station it is about a 20 minute walk to the first gate, where three people tried to scan us in. Eventually someone succeeded after my phone was passed around a bunch. We took our first selfie in the grounds at 11:40am.

Our first stop was the gift shop where we bought a purple branded towel for my dad.

Then we headed toward the Hill which was already bustling.

We queued for the bottom deck of the Amex pavilion where we got free soft serve with toppings and took an easy quiz to win two charms.

The line for the top deck was short, and for Amex cardholders only, so we decided to try that next. However, it was in the full sun with no discounts for drinks, so we just took a few photos of the hill and moved on. The QR code process for access was a bit convoluted but thankfully, the woman directing folks walked us through it.

With the all lines so far it was now coming up on 1pm, so although Leandra wanted to check out the used ball kiosk, it was just too crowded to get there quickly so we decided to head to our seats. We were located on the end of the court above the royal box, which luckily stayed in the shade all day. The opposite end of the court would also be good for views and shade coverage.

The first match was Taylor Fritz vs Alejandro Davidovich Fokina which had lots of good points and momentum swings. Fritz won in 4!

The second match was Carlos Alcaraz vs Jan-Lennard Struff with Carlos coming out on top in an entertaining four sets.

During the transition to the third match, Leandra left for a traditional strawberries and cream run, and thankfully only missed three games while standing in the long line. Bonus – the strawberries were free with our Amex card!

The final match, Emma Raducanu vs Aryna Sabelenka, was electric! The roof was closed just as the sun reached our row and it was super loud. Aryna won in two very competitive sets.

The walk back to the Tube was crowded but generally calm. We managed to board a waiting train and headed back to the hotel, getting back around 11pm. A full and fun day!