Centre Court, Wimbledon (London)

The Wimbledon Centre Court is the main court of the three grass courts located in Wimbledon, England. It was opened in 1922 and has hosted many national and international lawn tennis events such as Wimbledon and 2012 London Olympics. It is the stampede ground of the Wimbledon Championship, the third annual Grand Slam event of the tennis calendar. The stadium is owned & maintained by All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

General information

Arena capacity: 14,979 spectators

Address: All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, Wimbledon, London, SW19

GPS coordinates for the navigator: 51°26′1.48″N 0°12′50.63″W

Year of construction: 1922

Construction cost: £100 million

Field: grass lawn with dimensions of 41m x 22m

Seating plan of Centre Court

Where to buy tickets?

There are a few different ways to get tickets for the Wimbledon Championships, but the main way is through the ballot. There’s been a public ballot for the tournament since 1924, and UK residents can apply for a ticket in a lottery which is drawn at random. It’s really oversubscribed though so you might not get lucky, and you need to start applying early.

In the past, the ballot was done through paper forms, but it’s now run electronically. The ballot normally opens at the start of September and you need to register with myWIMBLEDON by the end of December. If you’re successful, you’ll start to hear back from mid-February, and have a certain number of days to pay for your tickets.

Ticket prices depend on the day, court and where you’re sitting for Centre/No 1 Court. You don’t get any choice on what day or court you’re allocated, and tickets are non-transferable so if you don’t want them they’re put back into the next ballot.

Ballots for returned tickets continue right on up until the tournament starts and tickets are issued electronically via the myWIMBLEDON mobile app.

If you’re not a UK resident there’s a separate overseas ballot, but it only has a few hundred tickets so you might be better off trying another way.

If you don’t get lucky in the ballot, the other ticket options are debentures, corporate hospitality, Ticketmaster and the queue – or you can watch the qualifying sessions.

How to get there?

The Wimbledon Tennis Championships take place at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (London SW19 5AE). The roads get clogged up so the best way to get there is by public transport, but be prepared for queues. The closest Tube station is Southfields, an easy 15-minute walk away straight down Wimbledon Park Road. Or Wimbledon station is slightly further away. There’s a shuttle bus from either station if you need it.

Where to eat and sleep?

Pimms and strawberries and cream are an integral part of the Wimbledon experience – 23 tonnes of strawberries are served during the Championships. But they’re not cheap, with a punnet of 10 strawberries £2.50 and glass of Pimms £8.50. There are lots of other eating options though, from takeaway cafés to sit-down restaurants and Champagne bars.

Centre Court and No 1 Court have a few options each and there are also plenty of places to eat around the grounds. If you’re on a budget you can bring in your own supplies, including up to a bottle of wine or two cans of beer per person. If you don’t want to carry a picnic in with you there’s a handy M&S Foodhall opposite Southfields Tube station. You can’t take hard-sided coolboxes in but you can bring bags if they’re within the size limit.

Staying in southwest London makes things easiest – and if you’re within walking distance then even better as you can avoid the crush on the Tube. Hotels in Wimbledon* get booked up really early, so you might want to look at Wandsworth, Putney or Earlsfield too, or it’s easy to reach Wimbledon from anywhere in central London on the District Line.

Many local residents rent out their houses during Wimbledon. You can rent a one-bedroom apartment 25 minutes’ walk from the grounds for £144 a night for two people. Check out VRBO* and AirBnB for listings, but again nearby places get booked up early.

Architectural Aspects

With a total of nine bays of structural fabric, the retractable roof is divided into two sections, with four bays in one section and five in the other. Ten steel trusses, each weighing 70t and spanning 77m, fasten the bays. Each truss is supported by a set of wheels that move along a track.

Hydraulic jacks and arms move the trusses apart and stretch the fabric between them until the north and south sections seam the court. The speed of truss deployment is 214mm a second.

The coordinated electro mechanical movement also unfolds and stretches the fabric between the trusses until the two sections meet in an overlapping seam above the middle of the court.

The GORE TENARA architectural fabric, a patented PTFE material, is 0.5mm thick. The arch shape of the roof provides a clearance of 16m for high balls. The roof can withstand up to 43mph (69km/h) wind speeds.

In preparation for closing the roof, one section is parked in its folded state at the north end of the court while the other is parked at the south end.

Euro Quality Coatings (EQC) coated the retractable roof system with Interpon D1036 polyester powder, coating the aluminum flashings and fabrications around the retractable roof to match the roof design.

Air-circulation system

The circulation system will have to pump in 8l of fresh air a second, per person, to keep the temperature in the closed stadium at specified levels (24°C ± 2°C, with 50% ±10% relative humidity based on ambient conditions of 27°C with 72% relative humidity). It will also pump 143,000l of conditioned air a second to insulate the grass court from moisture.

It takes about ten minutes for the roof to unfold completely. During this time, traditional covering of the pitch will help the game to resume within ten to 30 minutes depending on the weather. The roof also improves the stadium’s acoustics.

Lighting facilities

When natural light fails to meet visibility levels, it can be aided by a bespoke-design sports lighting system installed on the trusses. There are 72 indirect and 48 direct truss-mounted sports luminaries. On the turf, horizontal lighting level is 3,200 lux and for service and shots in the air, the vertical lighting level is 1,900 lux.

History

The name “Centre Court” derives from the location of the principal court at the All England Croquet Club’s original site off Worple Road, Wimbledon – where the main court was located in the centre of all the other courts. For the first Wimbledon Championship in 1877 a total of 12 courts were available which were laid out in a 3×4 grid and there was no actual centre court. This changed in 1881 when the middle two courts of the middle row were combined to form a Centre Court. The name was kept when the club relocated to its present site at Church Road in 1922. It was not until a further four courts were added in 1980 that Centre Court’s location in the grounds again matched its name.

The court suffered from bomb damage during World War II when five 500 lb bombs hit the Centre Court during an air attack in October 1940. 1,200 seats in the stadium were destroyed and although play resumed on time after the war in 1946, the court wasn’t fully repaired until 1949.