Debentures pay dividends
Lucky debenture holders could be heard inside the All England Club grounds boasting about the legal touting of their tickets. The cost of Centre Court debenture tickets rose from £27,500 to £50,000 last year. For that money the holder gets a guaranteed ticket for every day of the championships for the next five years. But one smartly dressed gentleman was overheard saying he was confident of making money by selling his semi-final and final tickets for the next few years. He probably has the continued success of Andy Murray and the emergence of Johanna Konta to thank for that.
Not-so-noisy neighbours
The All England Club is being curiously secretive about the cost of the new retractable roof being installed over No1 Court and to be ready for 2019. With figures ranging from £70m to £175m being bandied around Patrick Williams, the senior project manager, had the opportunity to set the record straight but remained tight-lipped when pressed by journalists. There are 400 men working on the site between 8am and 6pm on a weekday and 8am and 1pm on a weekend. The project will take three years to complete and Williams defended the decision not to work around the clock. “We are surrounded by residential buildings on three sides and we want to be good neighbours,” he said. “There’s no official agreement but if we started working late I’m sure we’d hear about it.”
Dressed to kill
Dustin Brown, the popular Jamaican-German who plays Andy Murray today, spent part of Tuesday signing autographs for fans in the Wimbledon fan zone, wearing a skull and crossbones T-shirt and odd fluorescent shoelaces. His sometime coach Malte Stropp was confident of him upsetting Murray on Wednesday. “He’ll go all out aggressive,” said Stropp, “it’s the only way against Murray. They are friends from playing IPTL tennis together but Dustin wants to beat Murray as an underdog like he beat Nadal two years ago.”
Australia men’s whitewash
Australians at SW19 were left feeling nostalgic for the days of Lleyton Hewitt and Pat Rafter after all the men from Down Under had crashed out in the first round. The only Australian of nine in the original draws left for the second round is the Russia-born 35-year-old qualifier Anastasia Rodionova.
SW19 could be new hotspot
The All England Club is offering free wifi for fans in three areas around the grounds. Many sporting venues do not provide the service due to cost but Wimbledon may look to follow the same model as Twickenham, which has free coverage as part of a tie-up with a sponsor.
