Another great day at the tennis!

As we were getting up this morning, Roger received a phone call from his friend P., asking us if we would like some free tickets to the Tennis tournament today. It’s nice to have friends with connections! Of course, we jumped at the chance, even though at the time it was raining quite steadily, and from the radar looked as if it was set to continue for while! P. reckoned it was supposed to clear up later, so we hoped he was right. When we checked the app. after breakfast, it said that play was delayed until noon. When we left to drive up there - only about 20 minutes away - it was still raining, but when we got up there, the roads were dry, and play had begun at noon as they said. We were in the outer parking area - on grass, and after all the rain we’ve had, it was pretty muddy. They had loads of volunteers on duty directing traffic, and one poor lady was mud-splattered head to toe - apparently one car had gone the wrong way and got stuck, and as he was trying to get out, mud from his tyres splashed up at her! We had great seats, just five rows back and fairly near the net. It was great to start with, when there was still a lot of cloud about, but as the sun broke through and gained in strength, it got really hot, so ultimately we went and sat in some other empty seats in the shade.
First up was men’s singles, Medvedev vs. Dmitrov, followed by women’s singles, World no 1 seed Barty vs Azarenka. Both of these games were surprisingly one sided - especially the Barty one - Azarenka didn’t win a game until about half way through the second set! Also, Barty seemed to be making a lot of her points from her serves, so it didn’t make for very interesting tennis! Both games were over fairly quickly in two sets. At this tournament, both men’s and women’s matches are best of three sets. Next up was The Olympic champion, Zverev against Argentinian Pellé - this was a little more exciting, but still two sets. We took a break during this time to get a drink and some food. After the Zverev match, at about 4.50, that was the end of our time allocation on Center Court, but you are still free to see games on the other courts. P. And S. left at this point, but we checked out the other courts. I think the most exciting match we saw all day was the last one, starting at 7 pm, the Greek Tsitsipas against Italian Sonego, both very strong players, and both giving it all they’d got! This match was very close, and did get to three sets. By this time it was 9pm and we decided to call it a day but play was continuing. All the courts are lit - I don’t know what time they usually play on till, but with all the rain we had in the beginning of the week, and this morning, they must have games to catch up on.
In my collage, top left is Zverev being interviewed after his match, and in action centre right, Medvedev top right, Sonego top centre, then the lower photos show a view of Center Court, the Food court area, and the almost full moon, rising in the evening, as we watched the final game.
Step count: 6,439