Where is the highest density per square metre of purple petunias in the world? Which settlement on the globe adorns its shop fronts with the largest known collection of vintage tennis rackets? What location claims the greatest variety of uses of a regular tennis ball?

The answer, of course, is Wimbledon. And honestly, there may just be more balls employed for decorative purposes in the annual Village Tennis Windows Competition up the hill than the 58,752 brand new official Slazenger balls (in 19,584 cans) in the tournament’s Ball Distribution Manager’s office ready for play. 

The annual celebratory tennis-fest that is The Championships really should have its own section in Guinness World Records.

Most significantly, where is the happiest collective of the world’s best tennis players to be found in any one year? At Wimbledon’s Aorangi practice courts on the eve of the most distinguished Grand Slam in the tennis calendar – when anticipation is all, no one has lost so much as a point in the heat of competition. Dreams have not yet been punctured by reality.

It’s a moment. The scent of freshly cut grass, the perfect presentation of an English country garden, the Wimble-scape colour palette harmoniously expressed in flowers, logos and court furniture. And if the Club could distil and bottle the emotion, it would be a bestseller to rival Championships towels in the Wimbledon Shop. (They do stock a Fresh Cut Grass candle and room fragrance.)

It’s magic, a sensory overload of happy purposeful bustle. To acknowledge Virginia Woolf’s famous appreciation of a special moment in a day in her novel 'Mrs Dalloway' – the 'triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of an aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June'.

But back to the satisfying thwock of balls after that little reverie... 

Aorangi’s warm-up area was abuzz on Sunday with players limbering up, doing press-ups, playing keepie-uppie, squat jumping and greeting each other cheerfully.

Frances Tiafoe, in trademark white headphones, slalomed between cones and flexed his legs with resistance bands. A gregarious presence, he fist-bumped fellow American Emma Navarro and stopped to chat with Ben Shelton before taking to the practice court.

Katie Boulter wandered through looking cool as a breeze; there was Madison Keys, Sofia Kenin, Leylah Fernandez, Katerina Siniakova…

Stefanos Tsitsipas worked hard with new coach Goran Ivansevic – the 2001 Wimbledon champion who helped Novak Djokovic to nine Grand Slam titles – and embarked on a hitting session that involved several pauses for fine-tuning consultations. 

Members of players' extended entourages explored the flagship Wimbledon Shop under No.1 Court, which is stocked to the brim with this year’s collection of kit, clothing, brollies for sun and rain, and myriad souvenirs (complete this year with a Christmas range of bone china baubles, felt tree decorations in the shape of a strawberry, racket and ball, as well as festive Santa stockings and present sacks).

Up in Wimbledon Village, excitement is wittily expressed by local businesses playing on the words of tennis lingo to market their various trades and professions. Thus, Cancer Research UK’s vintage clothes display is headlined ‘Courtside Cou-r-ture Queen’ and ‘Belle of the Ball’.

A hoarding on the former site of Peacock & Co solicitors – who are relocating – is emblazoned with a floral-surrounded, ball-studded replica grass court and the words, GONE TO COURT.

An estate agent flags up houses for sale and to LET! While Amathus drinks, lined with bottles of champagne and wine, boldly invites customers in with the message: ‘The instant cure for tennis elbow (probably!) *Not backed by any medical advice.'

On Monday, the two fields of 128 men and 128 women singles players will begin to take to court, some to continue, others to muse on what might have been. But, today, in the bubble of anticipation, everyone is having an absolute ball.