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How to Get A Ticket to Wimbledon *
by Steve Smith
Wimbledon. To a tennis fan, the word sums up all that's wonderful about the game.
Wimbledon--as shorthand for the championships played each year in the London suburb of that name--conjures up sportsmanship and athletic prowess, not to mention socializing on a grand scale.
A nice thing about the championship tournament at Wimbledon is that it's one of the few major sporting events for which the average fan (neither rich nor well-connected) stands a decent chance of gaining entry.
So how do you get a ticket to Wimbledon? We'll tell you, but first a little background.
Some History
The Wimbledon championship tournament is staged annually by The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. This is a private club founded in 1868 as simply the All England Croquet Club.
The club held its first tennis championships in 1877. They were witnessed by a few hundred spectators in what is described as a "garden party atmosphere." Today, the Wimbledon championships are attended by more than 500,000 people as well as carried to millions around the world through mass media and the Internet.
The tournament starts six weeks before the first Monday in August and runs for approximately two weeks. Players from more than 60 countries regularly compete.
Now, if you're planning to be in London during the two June or July weeks when the tournament is being played, how can you get a ticket?
The Public Ticket Lottery
The simplest procedure is to enter the public ballot that is held for some of the Centre Court and No. 1 Court seats. You will need some luck to score a ticket this way, but it's worth a try.
To enter the balloting, send a request for an application form, along with a self-addressed envelope to: All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, Box 98, Church Road, Wimbledon SW19 5AE England. You should enclose an international reply coupon, which you can purchase at your local post office, to cover the cost of return postage.
By the way, your request for an application must be postmarked by Dec. 15 and the application itself must be returned by Dec. 31 of the year prior to the tournament. If you're reading this after those dates in 2004, then you're too late for the 2005 tournament. You can try for the 2006 event, though (or a later one, depending on when you read this).
The drawing is held in January. If you are successful, you will be notified in February and asked to send payment at that time.
Tour Packages to Wimbledon
Another way to get into the tournament is to purchase a travel package from one of the many companies specializing in tennis tours. Most of these Wimbledon packages will include transportation, lodging and perhaps some local side tours in addition to the tickets themselves. This is a convenient way to go to the tournament if you like the all-in-one approach to buying travel. If you're more of an independent traveler, it might not suit you as well.
You can find Wimbledon travel operators on the Web by searching on "Wimbledon tournament travel" or "Wimbledon travel package."
Or You Can Stand In Line
Finally, several thousand tickets are put on public sale during the tournament itself. You'll have to stand in line for these and, in the end, you might not be able to score a seat, but if you're in the area anyway and have some patience, you can certainly give it a try.
The place to start your Wimbledon ticket quest is the official tournament site, www.wimbledon.org. Here you can learn what seats are available in the public balloting. You can also learn more about how to get one of those same-day tickets.
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About The Author
© Copyright 2005 by Steve Smith. Steve Smith is a writer who
lives near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His Web site, Tops 4 Tennis (http://www.tops4tennis.com),
includes the complete text of The Art of Lawn Tennis by Bill Tilden,
plus other articles and links for tennis players and fans.
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Speaking of tennis travel, be sure to see our main article on tennis camps and vacations. If you're a player as well as fan, you might be interestined in learning how a ball machine can skyrocket your skill and how to buy a tennis racquet online.
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