Olympic tennis

what a luxury - centre court tickets on the first day of the olympics, and 4 great matches to get swept up in. So I had agreed to meet Hilary and David at Southfield station - we then followed the crowds to the All England club and queued to get in, through the full on security - we had to empty our 100ml water bottles (who knows why) and experienced a full body search, greater than any airport search I have experienced.

We then looked for a programme - I bought both versions, which were essentially marketing spreads printed weeks ago without any reference to daily events - why they were able to be called programmes, I don't know! Anyway after watching the start of the Australian ladies doubles team losing to the Russians, I headed off to centre court. I watched the mens no 6 seed Thomas Berdych beaten by an on form Belgian, Steve Darcis. I watched this game from halfway up the tiers, above the middle of the court.

Then Serena Williams came on to play and beat Jelena Jankovic. For this match, David offered me his ticket in the second row - where I could see every muscle and facial expression. She is a large and very dark skinned lady who moves and predicts the game well. It was amazing to watch her use the time when her partner was getting ready to serve to visualise her next move. She was so focussed and always kept her back to the court until she was ready to play. It was also great to see Michelle Obama sitting with Venus in the box just above where I was sitting!

The next match was between Rodger Federer and an enthusiastic Colombian, Alejandro Fallo. He was totally on fire and actually broke his serve twice to win the second set. We were all ok about watching Roger play into the third game, and mostly were confident that he really could get it together, which he did! He is such a strong player - he just moves everywhere and his strokes have so much power.

The final match was between the 8th women's seed Caroline Wozniacki and the young local English player Anne Keothavong. Although she won the first set and the entire centre court audience was behind her, Anne could not hold out against the very consistent big hitter of Caroline against her. So this was another great 3 setter - and it was after 7pm when I left centre court! so by the time we caught the tube back to Woodford and prepared a quick dinner, we ate around 10pm and watched the day's activities being summarised for us on the BBC.