I used to play tennis when I was growing up. Honestly, it was more like home run derby, but I still really enjoyed it, and went to tennis camp and did the whole thing. I had always planned to play through high school, but my small little home town school system got volleyball a couple years before I started school athletics and that changed everything.
I still enjoyed watching tennis. All the Grand Slams were on our home television and every year my mom would travel to NYC with some of her friends to watch the U.S. Open.
Was I ever invited on these trips? No.
Am I bitter? Kinda.
In other news my mom used to be a pretty great tennis player. Even though she did not pass down her tennis skills (or I didn’t really try to use them), she did pass down her love for the game and favorite players. Steffi Graf, Pete Sampras, and Roger Federer forever!! Don’t even try to change me!
So I lived in London last summer, and mom was quick to point out that I would be there during Wimbledon…the fancy Grand Slam with a great accent, the Grand Slam we all want to be. I quickly began to research how to get tickets…which turned out to be difficult because the process is a little confusing…and I’m not that good at research.
I read as much as I could, and talked to some people. Mom booked her ticket to come see me and we were gonna do this thing…well, we were gonna at least try to do it. Turns out, Wimbledon does this really cool queue process so more people will have a chance to see some tennis. The people I talked to had gone a little earlier in the tournament and their number in the queue was in the 8000’s….yea this is gonna be a major line (“queue” if your fancy).
We got up super early one morning and made our way to the queue. London and Wimbledon are really great at signs, so we made our way to the field where the line forms pretty easily. I couldn’t help but notice that the line didn’t look that long. After a few minutes, the numbers start getting passed out….and our numbers should have been the first clue to our awesome day
That’s right people….we were in the 300s! Before we go any further, we need to talk about mom and mine’s expectations. We in no way actually thought we would get in. We have never done this before and the line process seems weird and we just didn’t think it would work out. In all honesty, we were both gonna be happy if we could see the Wimbledon gate….if there even was a gate…maybe it was just a door or hallway situation.
Yall! it’s a gate! And it was open!! And they let us walk through it!! We couldn’t believe it. Because we came during the last half of the tournament, all the big names were in the biggest stadium that was sold out. There was so much stuff to see though so we didn’t care. After a quick trip to the gift shop to buy EVERYTHING…we basically skipped through that whole place.
We saw wheelchair tennis…which is incredible. We jumped from court to court trying to see as much as we could. We walked to the top of that famous hill, ate strawberries and cream, and just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, we saw people like Martina Navratilova and Lindsey Davenport- people I had grown up watching!!
We stayed until the last match of the day was coming to a close. Our feet ached, we had weird sunburns, and we couldn’t collapse in our beds fast enough. It was one of those days that was so good it didn’t even make sense. It was a day where we kept shaking our heads because we couldn’t even believe it was happening. It was a day that we hadn’t even dreamed of, because we didn’t actually think we would ever experience it. Mom and I still turn to each other randomly and say “Can you believe that happened?” Who do we think we are??
I hope you have days like that.
Days that are so good and unexpected and make you turn into a kid.
Here’s to more days like that.
Wander Susan Wonder 