Eye on London - The Guide to Wimbledon 2017

London from the inside Monday 26th June - Sunday 2nd July 2017 

The oldest of the four global tennis Grand Slams, Wimbledon, at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, starts next Monday. Here’s everything you need to know about watching or going to SW19 2017.

DATES

The first rounds start on Monday 3rd July with the Ladies’ Singles scheduled for Saturday 15th July and the Men’s on Sunday 16th, both beginning at 2pm.

WHO ARE THE FAVOURITES?

Last year’s Ladies’ Single winner Serena Williams won’t be competing as she is due to give birth in September. Bookies’ favourites to take her title are Czechs Karolina Pliskova and Petra Kvitova, and British player Johanna Konta. Andy Murray will be looking to retain his title but will have to fight off old favourites Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer (who won the Australian Open in January then has sat out of the clay court season) and Rafael Nadal (who just won his 10th French Open).  

HOW TO GO ON THE DAY

If you don’t already have tickets you can still go to Wimbledon for the day, either queuing for a Ground Pass and the smaller courts or Court 2, Court 1 and Centre Court tickets (depending on how early you’re prepared to start queuing!) Ticket prices range from £8 (for a Ground Pass on the last Sunday) to £135 for Centre Court tickets on the last Wednesday (Centre Court tickets are not available at the turnstiles for the last four days.)

Do take: your own picnic and drinks, sun cream, hat, autograph book.

Do not take: hard sided picnic boxes, cool boxes, camping chairs and flasks, more than one bottle of wine or two cans of beer per person, selfie sticks.

WEATHER

It’s currently looking to be hot and pretty dry for the two weeks of Wimbledon with highs reaching 24 degrees. It’s always exciting when the rain starts anyway to see the Centre Court retractable roof come into play.

PRIZE MONEY

Winners of the men’s and women’s singles will pocket £2.2m each, with the runners up getting £1.1m - this has doubled since 2011. Even those that go out in the first round do OK, getting £35,000, which has trebled since 2011 and gone up 17% since last year, demonstrating Wimbledon’s commitment to the future of tennis.

NEW BALLS PLEASE

There will be 250 ball boys and girls from a total of 700 applications from Year’s 9 and 10 of local schools. They will have undertaken a written test and had weekly training since February.

ENTER THE BALLOT FOR 2018

The public ballot for 2018 is likely to open on 1st September 2017 when you need to send an SAE to AELTC to obtain your application form back which needs to be submitted by 31st December 2017. You will find out in February if you got tickets. Check the Wimbledon website for full details for next year after this years Championships.

 

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