There was no sound of popping corks or roaring crowds on Centre Court, but the All England Club was still brimming with life and excitement on Friday.
For thousands of on-site staff members, caterers and players, this weekend is like being Santa in the lead-up to Christmas.
Tennis’s premier tournament is here, one of the world’s largest entertainment events, with more than 40,000 people on site every day for two weeks.
So how does Wimbledon run so smoothly every year? Sportsmail took a trip to see the calm before the storm and uncover some of the secrets of SW19…
Sportsmail looks behind the scenes at SW19 – Neil Stubley ensures that each court is tailored to specifics
ACE HAWK PATROLS THE SKIES
The first port of call is a true celebrity — forget Rafa Nadal or Serena Williams. Rufus the hawk is on site at 5am every day.
The All England Club is just one of Rufus’ illustrious clients, a list including Lord’s cricket ground, Westminster Abbey and Fulham Football Club.
Imagine the scene: a player is serving for the championship, only to be greeted with an unwanted gift from the skies.
Pigeons and vermin are scared off by the patrolling Harris’s hawk.
Rufus the hawk is on site every day and is tasked with scaring away pigeons and vermin
‘Rufus is 15 now but will fly until he’s basically expired. He just loves to hunt,’ says owner Wayne Davis, 59, who with his daughter Imogen has worked at the Championships for 22 years.
‘Pigeons love it in the gullies and drains in the courts but Rufus deals with them. He’s the most famous hawk ever!’
Rufus was once stolen from Davis’s Land Rover when the owner had popped inside and left the window open.
‘He was in a carry-case-like box,’ Davis recalls. ‘I think they thought it was a safe with loads of money in, but they must have opened it later and seen Rufus as they dumped it on Wimbledon Common shortly after.
‘Rufus has had his picture taken with Andy Murray and Rafa Nadal, they all love him.
‘Wimbledon have pretty much adopted him. He has a special bit about him in the on-site museum.’
MAZE OF UNDERGROUND TUNNELS AND BUNKERS
AS spectators sip Pimm’s and bask in the sunshine on Murray Mound, thousands of staff are working tirelessly deep below them.
The All England Club has a maze of underground tunnels and rooms hidden from the public.
In operation since 1997, the tunnels are the veins of Wimbledon, circulating the lifeblood of the Championships. They help staff get from A to B without crashing into crowds of excited, sometimes lost and often merry spectators.
The tunnels connect many subterranean rooms, such as standard dressing areas to drug-testing rooms.
Each racket has a tag on, from names heard long ago to recent greats, often donated and sorted by decade
Sportsmail took a trip to the eerily quiet and chilling archive room, in which hundreds of rackets are stored.
Each racket — as seen above — has a tag on, from names heard long ago to recent greats, often donated and sorted by decade.
The tunnels are also used by players — but they are hardly state-of-the-art. They are merely dark and cold spaces.
Ahead of his fourth-round clash with Gilles Muller in 2017, Rafa Nadal banged his head while jumping to warm up in the tunnels beneath No 1 Court.
Also down the steps there is the library, which stocks about 20,000 books — pretty much anything printed about tennis.
It is open to the public.
Perhaps a new tennis fairytale will be written this fortnight.
MOWERS OUT AT DAWN BUT MAKE SURE GRASS IS 8MM!
We walk past plenty of A-list tennis stars, but not everybody here is a celebrity.
‘When the public arrive, we disappear into the background,’ says Martyn Falconer, head gardener, heckled by colleagues during his moment in front of the camera. ‘I’ve been here since 1999 — nine of us work full-time and we double that for the championships. People think it’s just a two-week job but we keep the site pristine all year.’
Martyn Falconer has worked at Wimbledon since 1999 and helps to keep the site pristine
They source 20,000 different plants from south-west London to all over Europe, including 30,000 petunias. ‘I start at about 5am,’ says Falconer. ‘I have sleepless nights but as soon as that gate opens, I breathe a sigh of relief — we’ve done our job, everything is pristine.’
A private company performs analysis on each court. The optimum length of grass is 8mm, and the horticulture team gets daily data on this, plus ball hardness and its bounce.
‘The mowers are set at the same height every day,’ says Neil Stubley, head of courts and horticulture. ‘We’re in from 7am and it’s a bit of Groundhog Day for two weeks. We tailor each court to specifics. Some on the north side, for example, might be too hard so we can hold back on the watering, or give another more water.’
KING OF THE STRINGERS
There are about 15 racket-stringers on site during the Championships and they take on requests to re-string up to 450 rackets a day.
Players and coaches will pop in with the rackets and make demands on tightness, which varies from player to player. With Babolat electronic stringing machines, the staff set the required tension.
There are about 15 racket-stringers that are on site throughout the Championships
Using jargon, the stringers reel off words seen in orders, such as ‘amount of pounds on the mains’, ‘natural gut’, ‘pre-stretch’ and ‘monofilament’. Natural gut is so named as it comes from a cow’s intestine to provide an elastic, rich layer of string for extra power. To bring the power down, stringers can provide looser crosses.
Most players keep the same set-up on the strings, but they may alter the tension depending on the weather and surface. Players go on court with around 10 rackets and it is not uncommon to see them rush off court to get their rackets re-strung.
HENRY VIII STARTED THE STRAWBERRY TRADITION
At a price-frozen £2.50 a pop, nearly 200,000 punnets of strawberries and cream are sold at Wimbledon.
In 2019, the last Covid-free Championships, Wimbledon sold 191,930 portions. Each punnet, they say, has 10 strawberries — make sure you count! — of Grade One quality from a LEAF-registered Kent farm.
Wimbledon’s tradition of strawberries and cream dates back to King Henry VIII
The fruits are picked at 4am, collected from the packing plant at 9am and delivered for inspection and hulling before being enjoyed that same day.
Now a staple of the Championships, strawberries and cream has been the signature dish since 1877, dating back to King Henry VIII’s penchant for snacking on them while watching tennis at Hampton Court Palace.
The cream is sourced from Rodda’s, Cornwall and about 7,000 litres are used, with vegan options available.
Fish and chips is the most popular main meal, with 18,061 portions sold over the 2019 fortnight.
‘A FULL JUG OF PIMM’S ON SITE’
Given the amount of Pimm’s sold on site during the two weeks — 276,291 glasses at the last Championships with full crowds — one’s ear might not twitch at a staff member saying ‘full jug of Pimm’s’.
But it is said staff have a language of codewords over the radios, and ‘full jug of Pimm’s’ is understood to be code for when an A-list celebrity is on site.
‘A full jug of Pimm’s’ is believed to be code for when a celebrity like Tom Cruise is on site
276,291 glasses of Pimm’s were sold at the last Championships with full crowds
Last year’s final saw the likes of David Beckham, Tom Cruise and the Duchess of Cambridge keep a watching brief from Centre Court. The Royal Box has 80
dark-green Lloyd Loom wicker chairs — the Queen attended in 1957, 1962, 1977 and 2010.
Around 6,000 staff are taken on for the Championships, including 250 ball boys or girls.
They work with 31 local schools, with intense training which starts in January. They have skills and fitness tests and are put into teams of six, with a captain each.
Teenagers must walk in silence and cannot speak to players unless spoken to first.
NEW BALLS PLEASE! ALL 53,000 OF THEM…
Sportsmail drops into the underground ball bunker expecting to view a sea of yellow balls but, as should have been expected, they are all covered to keep them in mint condition.
About 53,000 balls — that’s two full lorry-loads — are stored at 20˚C and have been supplied by Slazenger since 1902.
Ball-handlers watch each match from a control room, looking for ones that might need new balls.
About 53,000 balls are stored at 20˚C and have been supplied by Slazenger since 1902
Good trivia question: how many balls were used in the 2010 marathon match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, which finished 70-68 to Isner in the deciding set? The answer is 123.
Balls are often hit into the crowd by players — in celebration or anger. Wimbledon turn a blind eye to spectators stealing them, so if you’re lucky enough to catch a ball, don’t be shy!
Used balls are sold daily, at £2.50 per can of three — all proceeds go to local charities.
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