The 22,000 tickets for Wimbledon’s People’s Sunday were snapped up within 27 minutes of going on sale – leaving some fans elated and many more frustrated.
Tournament officials had expected strong demand for tickets when they announced only the fourth middle Sunday’s play in Wimbledon history on Friday night, and had priced accordingly, with 10,000 Centre Court seats on sale at £70, a further 8,000 for No1 Court at £40, and 4,000 tickets for the outside courts at £20.
Yet they were taken aback when 111,000 people joined Ticketmaster’s online queue at 3pm on Saturday. By 3.27pm all tickets had gone, leaving those who missed out rueing the online booking system.
One unsuccessful applicant, Adam Prior, wrote on Twitter that he had “Court 1 tickets before the page crashed after entering payment details and found himself at the back in the queue”.
Another, Ian Dorward, who eventually got tickets, said the queueing system had told him he had “five minutes to wait, then 110, then two and then 58. Utter madness”.
But Allison Creekmore, who lives in the United States, said she would be getting a red-eye flight on Saturday night to watch Sunday’s play at Wimbledon. “I just got a Centre Court ticket for tomorrow,” she wrote. “Thank goodness for airline miles!”
Those lucky enough to have bought tickets for the show courts will see the defending champion and No1 seed, Serena Williams, who faces the German Annika Beck, and the former Wimbledon runner-up Tomas Berdych who will play the talented 19-year-old German Alexander Zverev. Speaking after defeating Mikhail Youzhny on Saturday, Zverev said he could not wait for the experience. “My fitness coach Jez told me it’s going to be a very great atmosphere,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to it already.”
The Slovak Dominika Cibulkova faces the Russian Ekaterina Makarova, who surprised the two-times Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, while the No11 seed, Timea Bacsinszky, will play the No21 seed, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Bacsinszky said she was looking forward to playing on Sunday, even though the rain delays had left her tense.
“It’s tough because I have had this tension since Tuesday,” she said. “I finally played on Thursday. Then right away you have to play on Friday. It doesn’t end. The tension is still there. You have to just try to use it.
“My coach tells me be like a lion in the cage and just leave the cage closed until you go on court. Then to open the gates and let the lion in the arena.”
Wimbledon officials said gates would open at 8.45am and urged supporters to arrive early. Play is due to start on all courts, including Centre and No1, at 11.30am.
This will be the fourth time, after 1991, 1997 and 2004, there will be action on the tournament’s seventh day – traditionally a rest day – but Richard Lewis, the chief executive of the All England Club, said the poor weather all week had left Wimbledon with little choice.
“This has been a difficult decision but one we had to take to reduce the backlog of matches and in the interests of completing the championships on time,” he said. “And as with other middle Sundays, I am sure there will be a great atmosphere.”
Before Saturday’s play, the combined attendance stood at 195,875, compared with 210,358 at the same stage a year ago, with crowds falling below capacity on two consecutive days for the first time since 2004.
Tim Henman, who played on Centre Court on the last People’s Sunday in 2004, said he supported the decision. “If we weren’t to play on Sunday then we would have the scenario on the women’s side where they would have to play third-round matches on Monday, fourth-round matches on Tuesday, quarter-finals on Wednesday and semi-finals on Thursday,” he said. “And that’s if we have good weather. From the tournament’s point of view, our hand was forced.”
