Wimbledon
[2007.06.30] There were two foiled car bomb attacks in central London on Friday, and my wife cautioned me that I stay away from crowded places, such as mass transport, city center, concerts, sport events. But most of areas in London are quite busy.
I thought Wimbledon is outside of city, and the Tennis center is spreaded out on a vast ground; so it seems a rather safer choice if I ever leave the hotel room. Of course, life still goes on, we just need a little more vigilent. As I got the Tube, the train to city center was packed and the one to Wimbledon was pretty much empty. So I hopped on to Wimbledon train.
I really want to visit Wimbledon while my stay in London coincided with top tennis event. There are three events of Chinese players this Saturday: Lady’s double of S. Peng + Z. Yan; Girl’s single of Y-M Zhou; and lady’s double of T. Sun(a little bit left over from Friday because of rain). Of course, I have chances of seeing other games of great players such as S. William, M. Sharapova etc.
After queued in the rain for about an hour, I got in the Wimbledon tennis ground, ready to see some events of the 2007 Championships. The Grounds are all open air, which causes the games being dictated by weather conditions. The center court is the regular stadium we normally see on TV with seating surrounding the court. No. 1 and No. 2 have decent seats too. Most of other courts just have very limited seats on court sides.
The game was scheduled to start at 11:00am, but the rain keeps drizzling, then stops a little while, and then pours again. It seems to trick people into disappointment and excitement. All courts are covered with air blowed inside the cover. The whole grounds look like a farm place with plastic coverings to fend off frost. Around 1:00pm, official gave a go-ahead to start the games, all quickly all courts are rolled open. It was really interesting to see how they deflat the cover, and rolled the cover with strings. But several minutes later, it was ordered that all grounds be covered again. After such back-forth for two hours, we finally got game going. The boys/girls who will pick tennis balls marched in; then the umpires got into positions. It was fun to see everything in motion. I saw the tiny action details of picking and rolling the balls, giving the balls to players; they all have special ways of doing those - which you might have never noticed.
I sat on Court 7, where scheduled with first game of Man’s double (GER vs USA); second game of Lady’s double (CHN vs GER) when Peng & Yan will play. I cheered for USA team - I realized that USA team becomes my supported team, just after CHN team after living in USA for so many years. The first set was decided by a tie-breaker, and USA team lost by 6-7. Just several minutes into second set, it started drizzling again, the game was called off, and the ground was covered again. I waited for the rain to stop, until 7:30pm. The official announced the day was over because it never stopped drizzling.
In summary, it was quite an experience, even the weather ruined the day. I hope David, Emily and Junyu were here too.
I went to dinner at Chez Gerrard in Covent Garden. The french restaurant makes the olive so delicious (I hate olive usually) and I ate all of them in the dish. Also the anchivous butter was really good too; I thought it was goose-liver, but the waiter insisted it was anchivous butter (maybe he is right:).