{"id":33552,"date":"2026-07-06T10:35:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T10:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/33552\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T10:35:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T10:35:17","slug":"forget-the-tennis-is-the-wimbledon-queue-the-real-place-to-be-in-sw19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/33552\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget the tennis, is the Wimbledon queue the real place to be in SW19?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just as we were about to resign ourselves to becoming nomads in Wimbledon Park \u2013 having left our queue tickets at the blanket, we were essentially undocumented \u2013 Beth waved us down. Just in time, as the steward, dressed in purple, had come over, telling us to pack our things and waddle our way to the front of the next line. This process repeated itself over the course of the early afternoon, and by 1pm we were striding towards the security checkpoint, having missed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tatler.com\/topic\/the-princess-of-wales\" isautogenerated=\"true\" class=\"text link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Princess of Wales<\/a> by a few hours.<\/p>\n<p>As the man by the gate checked my bag \u2013 a blanket, unused; a water bottle, boiling; a copy of the new Ian McEwan, unread \u2013 I found myself reluctant for the queue to end. I waved goodbye to Colm and Sasha and Edgar and Lauren, till Beth and I were walking past the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tatler.com\/topic\/lavazza\" isautogenerated=\"true\" class=\"text link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lavazza<\/a> coffee van before she set foot in tennis\u2019 spiritual home for the first time in a 30-year-long love of the game.<\/p>\n<p>I wrote down my email in her phone, Nadal staring back at me, and realised what a brilliant introduction to the country she had experienced. I had always considered it a little twee, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tatler.com\/topic\/paddington\" isautogenerated=\"true\" class=\"text link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paddington<\/a> Bear or Giles Brandreth. Now, I saw it for what it was, the perfect ambassador for the best of Britain: eccentric, kind, a little boozy; 10,000 people waiting politely in an absolutely gigantic queue.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe I could squeeze a too-convenient metaphor out of this experience, after all. Maybe the Wimbledon queue, like life, is all about the journey, not the destination. In fact, I thought as I swung my barely-needed tote back onto my shoulder, maybe I would be better off watching the tennis at the Dog &amp; Fox, staying till closing, and doing the whole thing over again tomorrow morning. Satisfied, the security guard looked up and smiled: \u2018Welcome to Wimbledon, enjoy your day.\u2019 How was he to know how much I already had?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just as we were about to resign ourselves to becoming nomads in Wimbledon Park \u2013 having left our&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5945,7162,28,285],"class_list":["post-33552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-features","tag-paywall-sample-for-0-days","tag-tennis","tag-wimbledon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}