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Wimbledon’s Royal Box doesn’t just welcome members of the British royal family during the Grand Slam: Yesterday, King Frederik of Denmark was spotted enjoying tennis on Centre Court from the front row.
King Frederik was joined by his longtime friend, Dr. Christian von Buchwald. Per GB News, “The friendship between the King of Denmark and von Buchwald stretches back more than four decades to when Frederik was a teenager. Following his return from boarding school in France at the age of 15, the young prince was paired with von Buchwald as his tennis coach. Both based in Aarhus, the pair developed a close bond through their mutual enthusiasm for the sport and have remained firm friends ever since.”
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Frederik and Dr. Buchwald.
Von Buchwald, a former tennis player, now works as a doctor and a professor of ear, nose, and throat surgery at Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen’s largest teaching hospital. He is also a godfather to one of King Frederik and Queen Mary’s daughters, Princess Isabella.
The duo also attended Wimbledon together last year, in 2023, in 2019, and in 2016:
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Buchwald, left, and the Danish King, right, at Wimbledon 2025.
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The duo in 2023.
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In the Royal Box in 2019.
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In the Royal Box in 2016.
The last time Queen Mary joined Frederik at Wimbledon was back in 2014, when they were the Crown Prince and Crown Princess:
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The Danish royals at Wimbledon 2014.
While King Frederik is a longtime tennis fan, he never played professionally. He did, however, debate competing in sailing in the Olympics. “I’d been pushed to the limit training as a diver when I was younger, and I briefly wondered if I should dare to dream of trying out for Denmark’s national team in 1996. Probably in sailing,” he told Berlingske in 2016. “But it was a little late in my life. If I dropped out of everything else I was doing, yes, if I had spent four years training for it, then I could have done it.” Frederik famously met Mary during the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Austria.
Emily Burack (she/her) is the Deputy Digital Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, celebrities, the royals, and a wide range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms.