Just a day after deboarding a redeye flight from CVG to Heathrow, the alarm on my phone began buzzing at 4:45 a.m. in my London hotel room. We were in the cab at 5:15 and after 22 minutes of driving on the left side of the road, we had reached the grounds. Athletics in the United Kingdom operate differently than in the States, but it’s not like play begins at 6:00, or even 7:00 in the morning. So why was I at the All England Club at 5:37 a.m., more than five hours before the first service of the 2025 Wimbledon Championships? That’s where “The Queue” comes into play.

Brits have funny words for a lot of things. A man is a bloke and a boy is a lad, the restroom is the lav or the loo, and a line of people is a queue. Keeping with customary British courtesy, you are expected to queue as you wait for restaurants, the loo, and yes, sporting events. Excluding the Royal Family, and Spike Lee for some reason, tickets for WImbledon are not available for purchase, or on SeatGeek or other secondary platforms. So instead of arriving in the parking garage at 6:30 for a 7:00 first pitch, tip-off, or kickoff, the world’s largest queue begins to form in a pasture about a quarter-mile away from Centre Court roughly 24 hours before any tennis ball is bounced.

Upon arriving, we were greeted by a well-dressed official waving a purple Wimbledon flag, who then directed us to our place in the queue. Looking around the field, there was already a swarm of people. The onset of the queue was lined with the tents of individuals who had camped out since the day prior. Traversing out across the yard were countless people reading, hackysacking, enjoying coffee, and even sleeping on the scorched earth. We were then handed a queue card that marked our place in line, so that we could use the loo, snag some refreshments, or even seek shade as it was due to be an unusually warm 91°F London day. The card listed our number in the queue, #5,434, which seemed insanely high for that hour of the morning, but we were assured by some Wimbledon regulars that we were early enough to get tickets. Then, the waiting began.

Over the next four hours I enjoyed a Belgian waffle, read a book, and bathed in the blistering British sun. With tennis due to begin at 11:00, the queue finally began to move around 9:45. Fans were intermittently admitted through the gates, with roughly the first 2,000 passing through during the first wave. We were able to move about halfway up the line before we were halted again for another 90 minutes. The heat and travel fatigue were testing my patience, but the aura of Grand Slam tennis was nearing. During this second waiting period, we chopped it up with a local British family attending the queue for the 15th time, as well as a group of young New Zealanders crossing off their third leg of the Grand Slam calendar.

At 11:15, with tennis already underway, we began the trek through the Wimbledon neighborhood and towards the actual facilities. The queuing process would continue though, as we had to hand in our cards, buy tickets, go through security, and then finally get our tickets scanned. Only the foremost 500 queuers gained entry into Centre Court, but we were still fortunate enough to have full rein of the exterior courts. After queuing once more to enter the grandstand of Court No. 12 to see American Frances Tiafoe, we finally saw our first action of tennis at 12:37 p.m., exactly seven hours after we first arrived.

Tiafoe would win four points in succession to close out his match in straight sets, but we stuck around on Court No. 12 for Valentin Royer’s upset of Stefanos Tsitsipas. The Day 1 slate was loaded with singles action for both the men and the women, but the highlight was watching local product Peyton Stearns. Stearns was defeated in the first round, but fellow Cincinnati native Caty McNally won her first round matchup before falling to eventual champion Iga Swiatek.

All told, it was over a twelve hour day at Wimbledon, and we probably saw less than twelve sets of tennis. But the experience of the All England Club and the infamous queue was one I’ll never forget, and truly one of the most unique sports adventures on the planet. You join strangers from all corners of the globe at an ungodly hour of the morning, in the scorching heat with nothing to do, to form the longest (in both total people and waiting time) line in the world, all for the love of tennis.

Queuing Up: A Full Day at Wimbledon

Sole of the City