Wimbledon is a big WOW! If Wimbledon is on your bucket list, it’s a good place for it to be. It is one of the most amazing experiences of my life. What you see on television, doesn’t do it justice. Grass court tennis is incredible to see in person, but the grounds are also an amazing site. Even if you are not a tennis fan, I’d highly recommend the Wimbledon experience.

How to get tickets to Wimbledon

When I knew I was going to the UK during Wimbledon to present, I started trying to figure out how to get tickets. What I quickly learned that I did not know is that tickets are not at all easy to get. My first step which seemed easy was to sign up for the lottery. I found out later that many people sign up for the lottery but very few get tickets.

My second step was to do further research on how people get tickets. I found some great articles online and talked to people. But found out that if I wanted tickets, I’d have to get in a queue the morning I wanted to go. Some people said this was easy, while others said it was not. I think it really depended on what point in the tournament we wanted tickets – early rounds not so difficult, later rounds more difficult.

The third option to get tickets was Ticketmaster but I couldn’t quite figure out when I needed to get on Ticketmaster to get them. As I found out, I had to get on the website at 9:00am (no later) the morning before the day I wanted to go to quickly snatch up tickets that were available. Apparently, they sold out very quickly.

The last way to get tickets (and apparently very common) is to know someone. So, I reached out to a couple of people, and you know the answer… Sorry! A few weeks before I was leaving for my trip I get an email from Brian at PTR (the organization I was partnering with in the UK) letting me know he had tickets for me and my wife for Tuesday and Thursday of the first week of Wimbledon. Woohoo! How awesome is that!! We were elated. Phew! Thank you Brian!

How to get to Wimbledon

We get up Tuesday and off we go, not knowing what was ahead. We were staying in London which is only 17 miles from Wimbledon. The underground was great because traffic in London and at Wimbledon can be pretty horrendous. We got on the underground and decided to follow everyone else (obviously going to Wimbledon). We didn’t need to because the train announced which stop to get off (it’s not as intuitive as you might think). Yeah! We come up from the train and there are signs saying the walk was just under a mile so we walked. The walk was pretty cool because everyone is walking and it’s a sea of people from train station to Wimbledon stadium.

How to get into the stadium

As with any good venue, there are lines, lines, and more lines. We were in a 60-minute line to get our tickets (not too horrible for an international event) and then, another line to get into the stadium. There were food lines and lines of people on the grounds waiting to see and get seats for matches. Patience is more than a virtue in these kinds of situations. It’s survival of the fittest. IT IS ALSO WORTH IT!

Stadium etiquette

We had grounds passes. Depending on the grand slam, having a grounds pass means different things. At Wimbledon, a grounds pass means we could see any match on courts 3-18. We were not allowed into the main stadium courts – center, 1 or 2. Even though we could (and did) get into court 3, for most matches, there was a queue to get in. What this means is that you have to get in line to get a card to get in line to get into the stadium.

Courts 4-18 were in the open so anyone could stop and watch a match. Most matches had lines of people a few people deep watching. If you wanted a seat, you either waited in line or quickly sat down when one match was over for the start of the next match.

It’s important to be strategic ahead of time about what matches you wanted to watch so that you could head for that court and wait for a seat well in advance of the match. For example, I wanted to see Isner play Kukushkin so we got there early and as the match before ended we sat down 90 minutes before the start of the Isner versus Kukushkin match. Once you have a seat, you don’t want to leave it.

Being at the prestigious Wimbledon

As I said at the start, being at Wimbledon was amazing! Watching the pros play grass court tennis in such a beautiful setting was incredible. In all of the matches where we got seats, we were right there. Because the outer courts don’t have many seats, there isn’t a bad seat.

What I noticed as an Elite Performance Expert

As you would expect, these players have amazing physical strength and talent. Mentally they are tough, confident, and resilient (for the most part). It is clear that in tennis there’s really no doubt that the mental component of playing the game is where the margin of error comes in. All of these tennis players work on tactics, technique, and fitness but what it all comes down to in a match is how mentally tough they are.

At this level, technique doesn’t just break down. They don’t forget how to play the game. Many of the pros have been playing the game for much longer than the 10,000 hours necessary to master it. Technique breaks down because of what’s going on in their head. At all levels, but particularly at this elite level there’s such a small margin of error, and developing the right mental skills is what makes or breaks a tennis players ability to win a match.

A NEW OFFERING: on-court presence

I work with a lot of tennis players to help them develop the mental side of their game. Part of that is also working on body language and presence. Because, I got to witness first hand at Wimbledon the importance of this skill and its consistency, I am now offering an assessment of players on-court presence.

Why? An assessment of what is happening before, during, and after a match gives further helpful information on the make or break elements that a player needs to work on. I can assess what I see – body language, interactions, and reactions before, during, and after a match – to develop and strengthen the necessary skills to increase a players chances of performing well.

Wimbledon solidified 2 things for me:

• Having the right mental skills makes or breaks a player’s level of success
• Part of developing the right mental skills in a deeper way is understanding and changing a players on court presence.

The entire Wimbledon experience, personally and professionally, was a WOW moment. Impressive! Prestigious! Once-in-a-lifetime! And gratifying to know the importance of my work with tennis players who want to master the game and understand how mental skills can change their performance and their life!

For more information on this or to just chat about Wimbledon, contact me at drmichelle@drmichellecleere.com.