The best viewing points do not necessarily come with a specific gate, aisle, row and seat number. In Vantage Point, Wimbledon.com identifies the prime perches, observation points and court views that don’t require a ticket. Read on and take up your positions.
Ticket Resale queue and in-built surprise
The Queue is a much-loved feature of Wimbledon with its own social charm and etiquette. Indeed the experience is so much immersive fun that people very often queue in order to rush in and join another queue: the Ticket Resale queue, where you can down blankets and towels again, snack on picnics, sip Pimm’s and generally imbibe the atmosphere until the tickets for Centre Court, No.1 Court and No.2 Court start trickling in to be re-sold (generally early evening, all proceeds to charity).
Good things come to those who wait, so the saying goes, and they certainly come to those who cannily hotfoot it up the steps of St Mary’s Walk to the Ticket Resale queue. For here beats the emotional heart of the Grounds, a place where you feel in the middle of the action and appreciate that tennis is “a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquillity,” as Billie Jean King once famously quipped.
That is, “tranquillity” meaning not so much stillness and hush but serenity and contentment, for life up here comes with the perfect soundtrack for tennis fans: the rhythmic utterances of chair umpires calling out the score, the happy sound of applause for admirable strokes of play, the grunts and squeals of effort from players and, of course, the ploink of ball on racket (connoisseurs can even discern the slide of a ball into the net).
This is not just courtesy of the giant TV screens – Nadal versus Sousa, Konta versus Kvitova, Serena versus Suarez-Navarro and Halep versus Gauff - but from nearby Court 18 (where on Manic Monday you might also have heard Benoit Paire smashing his racket in frustration in his match against Roberto Bautista Agut) and from the collective competitive chorus that emanates from the so-called Northern Courts 14, 15, 16 and 17.
Queue camaraderie allows for people to mark out their pitch and wander across to the neatly trimmed wide hedge from which you enjoy a panorama that would certainly merit a special viewpoint symbol on an Ordnance Survey Map in the world outside the All England Lawn Tennis Club.
Just feet away sprawls the sea of tennis-loving humanity encamped on the Hill. The elevation puts you almost on a level with the new-for-2019 living walls and gives a window on to the petunia-lined balconies of the new hospitality suites that skirt No.1 Court. In the sky above, you see the broadcaster’s camera crane. Everything you see above, below and around you confirms the utterly must-see nature of tennis played on the grass of SW19.
Come the hour when ticket-holders start to ebb away, the queuers edge towards the cabin where the team of Honorary Stewards steadily dispense the golden resale tickets (£15 for Centre Court, £10 for No.1 and No.2 Courts). It's time to move on to that most-prized vantage point - a superlative view from a seat in the one of the best show courts in tennis. And the added thrill? Your second-stage vantage point of the day comes with the bonus of surprise. It could be in the theatre of champions on Centre, or one of the new 12,345 seats in No.1 Court or in the intimate amphitheatre of No.2 Court. Wherever it is, it will be a seat with another unique view.