{"id":674445,"date":"2026-07-05T03:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T03:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/674445\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T03:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T03:40:09","slug":"glastonbury-for-tennis-and-a-special-aura-why-fans-worship-wimbledon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/674445\/","title":{"rendered":"Glastonbury for tennis and a special aura &#8211; why fans worship Wimbledon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wimbledon, and a mutual love of tennis player Boris Becker, also brought together Jacqueline Webb-Watson and Nicola Dawson, forging a 40-year friendship.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jacqueline, from Loughton in Essex, says her &#8220;love affair&#8221; with SW19 began in 1977 through listening to matches on the radio before her first visit with family in 1984. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We arrived at 11:30 and walked straight in &#8211; I&#8217;m still baffled by the lack of queues that day,&#8221; the 58-year-old recalls.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">By then, she had connected with fellow Becker fan Nicola and the pair had &#8220;great adventures&#8221; camping at Wimbledon over the years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But her &#8220;absolute highlight&#8221; is watching the 2013 men&#8217;s semi-finals &#8211; the year Andy Murray eventually claimed his first title. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;That day was pure magic. Hot, sunny, incredible matches from a prime seat on Centre Court, and the sheer joy of seeing a British man reach the final. I&#8217;ll admit, I definitely shed a tear when Andy finally won it,&#8221; Jacqueline says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She said Wimbledon&#8217;s &#8220;distinct Britishness&#8230; the traditions, the immaculate grounds and the legendary organisation&#8221; of the queue made it the best tournament on the circuit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Having visited all four Grand Slams, I might be biased, but Wimbledon is truly in a league of its own,&#8221; Jacqueline adds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wimbledon, and a mutual love of tennis player Boris Becker, also brought together Jacqueline Webb-Watson and Nicola Dawson,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-674445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}