Let me begin by saying that the question I was asked most frequently when I returned from London had nothing to do with Wimbledon, or tennis, or England, or Michael Jackson. It was: “How was your flight? I hope it was better than the one you had going over there.” The return trip was much smoother, just so you know, though I was surrounded by a class of high school students, mostly girls, from Dayton, Ohio, who I can only assume hadn’t descended through many bumpy banks of clouds before. Each time the plane lost altitude and began to float downward during our landing, they shrieked, hugged each other, and then broke apart in spastic giggles—“Dude, we're going to die!” the girl next to me happily squealed to her friend. It was better than Space Mountain.

Seeing Wimbledon on TV after a week of seeing it with my own eyes, I had the same thought that I’d had when I came home last year: It might be better in HD than it is live. You get the same sunlight, but it’s concentrated and made more comprehensible—meaningful—inside the TV’s rectangle, and you get closer to the players. One close-up this morning showed the texture of Serena Williams’ hair in more detail than I’ve ever seen it in person. It seemed to be within touching distance.

Live or on TV, Wimbledon received its best match of 2009 from Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Roddick today. They rallied and rallied and rallied some more, but the quality was high enough and the score close enough to keep it from ever sinking into the mundane, even over five long sets and numerous multi-deuce games. Hewitt, after playing his finest tournament in years, dug himself too deep a hole when he suffered a brief brain camp in the third-set tiebreaker. It was one of the few bad patches of play all afternoon, but it was enough.

With that, the semifinals of Wimbledon are set. What do they hold in store for us?

Elena Dementieva vs. Serena Williams

I know what you’re thinking: Is Elena Dementieve really still in this tournament? I don’t think I’ve seen one point of hers so far, but give her credit: She took an easy draw and didn’t blow it.

If you think Dementieva’s cause is hopeless against Serena Williams, who played a very determined, quality match to beat Victoria Azarenka in the quarterfinals, you’re probably right. Serena beat her in a routine straight-setter the last time they met in a Slam semi, in Melbourne in January, and the American appears to want another crack at her sister in a Wimbledon final as much as she’s wanted anything on a tennis court in recent years.

Before Australia, however, Dementieva had won three straight over Serena, including a big one at the Olympics in Beijing. The Russian thrives on pace, and Serena certainly brings that. Still, I liked Williams’ form, and focus, in the quarters. She doesn’t often lose that once she’s got it at a major.

Winner: S. Williams

Dinara Safina vs. Venus Williams

Serena’s big sister follows her onto the court for the second match, having looked almost as sharp as her sibling this week—neither sister has dropped a set at Wimbledon so far. Her opponent, Safina, has dropped plenty, having struggled her way back from one-set deficits against Amelie Mauresmo and Sabine Lisicki.

Williams and Safina have only played three times over the years—how is that possible?—with the American winning twice. The Russian snuck out a three-setter the last time they played, but that was on clay, Safina’s best surface. This is, as we all know, Venus’ best surface. Like her sister, she gets better as the matches get bigger. How can Safina spoil the seemingly inevitable Williams final feud? I would say that she should try to give Venus no rhythm by mixing up spins and paces, but that really isn’t her specialty. So Safina is going to have to bomb away heavy and deep from the baseline, take charge of points with her return when possible, and not hurt herself with her serve. What are the chances that it will be enough?

Winner: V. Williams

Roger Federer vs. Tommy Haas

There’s always been a little resentment from Tommy Haas over Roger Federer’s outrageous success. The German beat him in two of their first three matches, including a five-setter in Melbourne way back in 2002. For years, Haas must have thought of Federer as another guy of similar talents, not someone who was going to win 14 Grand Slams, while he never even reached a major final. The upshot is that Haas has never bowed to Federer, never put him on a pedestal, never considered him unbeatable. As we all remember, he was just a point away from serving for a straight-set win over him in Paris last month.

Haas is playing even better now. He showed off some frankly beautiful all-court tennis today in beating Novak Djokovic, and proved that a competent transition game and vintage volley technique can still make the difference on grass. Haas, naturally, tried his best to lose his concentration and fold when he served for a two-set lead, but he uncharacteristically gathered himself a few minutes later and saved three set points in the ensuing tiebreaker. He sealed the set with a fabulous approach and stretch volley winner of a sharp Djokovic pass.

You might say Haas has nothing to lose against Federer, but that’s only true until he gets a lead. It isn’t that he can’t close the deal against his old rival; it’s that Federer has looked just as bulletproof at Wimbledon as he did at the French. Soderling threw the kitchen sink at him in the fourth round, and he came up with all the right responses when he needed them. I’m looking forward to seeing Haas do the same, by coming to the net at every plausible opportunity. And I’m betting that Federer, while surrendering a set, finds a way—with stab returns at his opponent’s feet, with clutch serves during tiebreakers, with a killer forehand pass on his only break point of the set—to end the 31-year-old Haas’ Indian Spring.

Winner: Federer

Andy Roddick vs. Andy Murray

From the start, even when Murray was a scraggly whippersnapper, his crafty game gave Roddick fits. The Scot beat him in their first two meetings, in 2006, the second of which happened at Wimbledon. And he’s beaten in their last three meetings, including a straight-setter early this year in Doha.

Does Roddick have a chance against the hometown favorite? He is a steadier and more patient player than he has been in the past, but he also did a lot more work in his quarterfinal, taking five sets to oust Hewitt while Murray terminated JC Ferrero in straights. Murray has borne the pressure well; only in his match against Wawrinka did he appear to be pressing, particularly on his forehand. Roddick will be the guy with nothing to lose, and his serve has been more effective than ever over this fortnight—why is he suddenly acing people left and right? For his part, Murray will have to banish all thoughts of the final, of the Queen in the royal box, of a chance at immortality. That will have to affect his psyche, won't it? Just a little? Maybe?

Steadier or not, 30 aces or not, Roddick has fewer ways to win points than the Man Who Might Be King. The Yank has to serve lights out—which won’t be easy against Murray, who puts a racquet on more serves than just about anyone else—and take his chances in tiebreakers. I'll bet he almost pulls it off.

Winner: Murray

Each evening at Wimbedon, one of the young women who work in the pressroom winds through the rows of reporters and asks if you’d like a copy of the Order of Play. I’ve never seen anyone turn it down. In the midst of the chaos of keeping your eye on half a dozen results, typing furiously, and trying to pretend your stomach isn’t angry at you, having a clean slate of new and unspoiled matches to anticipate and ponder is a welcome distraction. Plus, there’s that Wimbledon touch at the very top:

The Championships 2009

Intended Order of Play for Monday 29 June 2009

COMPLETE

So reassuring and official, that COMPLETE. From there, we all sit back and blurt out incredulous and borderline-pointless comments—“Poor Dinara, Court 2 again”; “Wow, Djokovic on Court 3 and Hewitt on Court 2!—to no one in particular. Then, unfortunately, it’s back to dealing with the unfinished article in front of us.

The middle Saturday of Wimbledon offers an especially momentous Order of Play. Here were are shown how all 16 fourth-round matches will play out on Monday, one of the busiest days (outside of first rounds) in tennis.

For today, that sacred parchment—it’s just a piece of white paper, but we can pretend—will serve as our way into the second week. Here’s a preview of what we might see on Monday, working from the outer courts in.

Court 18

Agnieszka Radwanska vs. Melanie Oudin

This is not unwinnable for U.S.-hope-of-the-nanosecond Oudin. Radwanska will give her a chance to hit her shots. Will enough of them go in, or will the crafty Pole push her just far enough out of position to keep her from getting a good look. Pick: Oudin

Virginie Razzano vs. Francesca Schiavone

Razzano has been on a tear, relatively speaking, but I like Schiavone’s heavy strokes more. They’re safer, without being soft. Pick: Schiavone

Court 4

Igor Andreev vs. Tommy Haas

This is a battle of European veterans on an intimate and picturesque side court. Andreev has more firepower with his forehand, but Haas looked more motivated and proactive against Cilic—as if he wanted to wipe the memory of his five-set defeat to Roger Federer in Paris out of his memory with a win—than he has in years. The old-timer is on the verge of becoming a story again. Pick: Haas

Caroline Wozniacki vs. Sabine Lisicki

The two teens are 1-1, with Lisicki winning their last match, in the final in Charleston on clay. The German is the bigger hitter, but she’s also rawer than the unflashy but poised Woz. Pick: Wozniacki (in three)

Court 3

Victoria Azarenka vs. Nadia Petrova

The Graveyard begins with an intriguing and hard-to-figure matchup between young and (somewhat) old. Petrova is the more powerful athlete, but Azarenka has looked typically relentless so far. The question may be: Who can get their serve in if they get a lead? Pick: Azarenka

Dudi Sela vs. Novak Djokovic

The last time Djokovic was shunted to a small show court was against Philipp Kohlscheiber in Paris. Hopefully for him, he won’t let the snub bother him—he does like being the man, after all. Sela is a tough out, but Djokovic seemed very happy with his performance in the last round. I’ll talk his word for it. Pick: Djokovic

Juan Carlos Ferrero vs. Gilles Simon

I’ve been waiting to write something good about Simon for months, but he keeps disappearing before I get the chance. The smooth-moving French always thrive on grass, and Simon may have finally found his bearings after a poor season. This has the makings of a long, but enjoyable affair. I’ll take the younger guy. Pick: Simon

Court 2

Elena Vesnina va. Elena Dementieva

I’ve been at Wimbledon for a week, and this is the first I’ve heard os seen Vesnina’s name. Dementieva is making the most of her soft section. Pick: Dementieva

Daniela Hantuchova vs. Serena Williams

I remember watching these two play at the Open a few years ago and thinking that I’d never seen a greater disparity in power and physicality on a tennis court. Serena can go off, and she can be upset, but not by Hantuchova. Pick: Williams

LLeyton Hewitt vs. Radek Stepanek

Hewitt appears to be the Safin of 2009. Stepanek gets under your skin and forces you to make shots to beat him, but Hewitt has been making all the shots so far. He also hasn’t played a ridiculous amount of tennis over the first week. Pick: Hewitt

Court 1

Venus Williams vs. Ana Ivanovic

The AELTC has given Ana a shot by taking Venus off of Centre Court, where she’s won something like 30 sets in a row. And Ivanovic, after a very shaky start, has found her range in the second set in the last two matches. But it won’t be enough to dislodge Venus in the second week. Pick: Williams

Fernando Verdasco vs. Ivo Karlovic

Ivo the Terrible is back to destroy tennis after a series of Wimbledon disasters. I’ll make a guess: Dr. Ace vs. Mr. Sauce will come down to the tiebreakers. Karlovic won their last meeting, on grass at Nottingham last year, 10-8 in a third set breaker. I’m seeing a repeat. Pick: Karlovic

Tomas Berdych vs. Andy Roddick

This will be interesting. These huge servers are 2-2 against each other, with Berdych having won the last time, on hard courts, in a third-set tiebreaker. The Czech is more dangerous all around, but Roddick has the better day-to-day head on his shoulders. It will be tricky for him; he may have to weather an early storm and find a way to keep it going long enough for Berdych to self-destruct. Pick: Roddick

Centre Court

Robin Soderling vs. Roger Federer

The big court plays out as it has all week: Federer early, Murray late. Some British writers are worried that this will give Federer an advantage if they meet in the final. I’m not clear on why. Either way, he’ll have to survive the Sod first. Federer has been sharp for the most part so far, but I get the feeling Soderling will scare him Monday. The Swede has gotten better with each match and shaken off any possible letdown he may have felt after the French. He also has nothing to lose after taking his lumps in the final there; at the very least want he'll want to improve on that result. And now he knows that if he gets hot, anything can happen—he has the map to the big upset. But Federer, with a 10-0 head to head, has the map to beating Soderling. Pick: Federer

Dinara Safina va. Amelie Mauresmo

The world No. 1 makes her Centre Court debut against the 2006 champion. This seems like the perfect time for one more return to glory on the lawns for the Frenchwoman. She’s 4-2 against Safina, and almost beat her the last time they played, in 2008 on hard courts. Pick: Mauresmo

Andy Murray vs. Stanislas Wawrinka

The BBC gets its late-afternoon Murray mania again. More than Federer, he has been flawless thus far. Stan beat Murray as recently as last year on clay, but the Scot mowed him down in straights at the U.S. Open. The low-key Wawrinka has never been at his best on the big Slam stage. This is the biggest of them all. Pick: Murray

That’s it, I’m going sneaker shopping. Thanks everyone for reading. I would have commented back, but Typepad had it in for me this week. Enjoy Monday at Wimbledon; I’ll join you on DVR back in New York. ESPN, NBC—so much better than actually being there, I’m sure.

Time is running out on my Wimbledon. That’s a bit of an understatement, to be honest. This is my last day here, but I didn’t want to have to come out and say it.

What have I not gotten enough of this week? Tennis matches, of all things. I kept unintentionally trapping myself in the pressroom, wracking my brain to find the very best way to describe a down-the-line backhand or a crosscourt forehand. “Drilled the ball,” “hammered the ball,” “smoked it”: What should it be? 

Anyway, I vowed to make up for it today by getting out on the grounds and moving around as much as possible. Plus, it's Saturday. It's un-American not to get away from the office.

1:15: Court 3

Naturally, the first place I go I’m confronted with a bona fide story—so much for the rambling for the moment. I’m in my seat just behind the court here for all of five minutes and I’m pouring sweat. The humidity has been peaking here for a couple days without any breaks for rain. Jelena Jankovic looks suitably sluggish, so much so that her opponent, Melanie Oudin, a 17-year-old from Georgia (yes, the one in the U.S.), looks like she’s running circles around her.

Oudin is, in the parlance of the sportswriter, a prototypical “spark plug.” She’s strong and squat, 5-foot-6 on her tip-toes. She’s also a prototypical low-to the ground baseliner, with an extremely clean and reliable crosscourt two-handed backhand that she can also slap down the line for winners. Her forehand is more of a rally shot than a point-ending weapon; she uses something more conservative than a Western grip on it, which makes it hard for her to come over the ball. But give her something high and she extends through it smoothly.

Not surprisingly, Oudin’s serve is her weak spot. She doesn’t get up for it, settling for middling slices instead. Her strong point? On the evidence in front of me today, I’d say it’s her head: She’s patient, she’s smart, and, it goes without saying for a successful young woman player, she’s a fighter.

Oudin is willing to take a hand off the racquet and take pace off the ball with a backhand slice, even though it can float on her. She pushed that shot down the line and got it to bounce away from Jankovic’s forehand, a tricky shot to handle. The American has the hands to hit a very finely gauged drop shot with her backhand, and when she gets a forehand in the middle of the court, she can flatten it out for winners. Primarily, though, she’s a grind, and very patient, both in her shot selection and the way she stays with each ball rather than rushing her stroke when she’s going for something big.

The combination eventually left Jankovic bamboozled. Oudin could have won in straights—she had four set points in the first but lost it in a tiebreaker—but she never looked even remotely down on herself. Oudin always seemed to be thinking out there, and in the third set it all came together. She won going away, belting bigger and bigger down the line backhands even as she got closer to the most important win of her career.

The young WTA names to watch at the start of the week were Robson and Larcher de Brito. They’re long gone, while Oudin, an unheralded qualifier, is in the fourth round. She was a little incredulous about it herself in her press conference, which she attended wearing hoop earrings and a glittery headband. She was ready for prime time, and she answered all questions as directly as anyone could hope. Asked if she had blocked out the fact that she was playing at Wimbledon, Oudin jumped right in, American teen style:

“I mean, I go into every match the exact same, you know, like no matter who I play. It’s not like, Oh my gosh, I’m playing the No. 1 player in the world. It all depends on what game I play and what shots I hit and that stuff.”

Oudin’s goal for the tournament was to qualify, but doing that gave her a further confidence boost. She has a twin sister, Katherine, who plays junior tennis and who went to high school. Melanie was home schooled, and like all of us, made it her lifelong goal as a kid to become No. 1 in the world. Her grandmother was the tennis inspiration in the family.

Oudin (ew-DAN) is a French name, and a couple of the country’s journalists attended her press conference. Told that they were trying to claim her as one of their own, she burst out laughing.

“Yes, my last name is French. But I’m totally American for sure.”

We knew that, but it was still nice for a U.S. tennis writer to hear.

3:00: Court 1

The match of the tournament thus far has been Tommy Haas and Marin Cilic, which was suspended last night at 6-6 in the fifth. When play resumes, Haas comes out serving and volleying, which seems to be a smart tactic, a way of forcing himself to be aggressive in this shortened time period. It works to start, but when he serves for the match, he loses two points at the net. Now serving and volleying looks tactically reckless—what are you thinking, Tommy? Moral: It’s all in the execution. But Haas gathers himself to serve it out. The man who is on his fourth of fifth tennis career, and is enjoying a very belated renaissance, faces Igor Andreev next. After that, he’d have a shot at getting Novak Djokovic, whom he beat last week.

4:00: Court 4

Is there another American dream about to come true? Jesse Levine has won the first set over Stan Wawrinka and is up a break in the second, but the Swiss is in the process of finding his range. Everything turns in a second as Wawrinka asserts his more versatile shot-making. Levine has come down to earth, and he’s not happy about it. As I’m leaving, he spits at a spot on the grass where he thought he got a bad bounce. From Oudin’s joy to Levine’s bitter frustration, Wimbledon is nothing if not a living exhibit of emotional extremes.

5:00: Court 1

Sabine Lisicki hits a long and heavy ball, and she’s had Svetlana Kuznetsova on her heels and spraying balls wide all day. But when it comes time to serve it out, for a seemingly routine 6-2, 6-3 win, Lisicki double faults to start the game. She’s broken, and over the next few games she squanders four match points. When Kuznetsova sprays another one wide on the fifth and it’s finally over, Lisicki is overcome. She pulls her visor down over her eyes—she can’t believe what they see, a win over the French Open champion, the biggest of her career. Everywhere you go, there are people going to extremes around here.

6:00: Centre Court

Like Tim Henman's back in the day, an Andy Murray match here has started to seem like a world event. Murray, so normal and wiry and unprepossessing as he walks into a jammed Centre Court, looks like he could be crushed under the weight of the stadium and the invisible expectations that swirl through it.

Murray doesn’t crumble. Instead, he is quietly braced by the atmosphere in the building. He says, in his plain and understated monotone, that the home crowd “helps him focus on the important points.” The stadium doesn’t veer as wildly between joy and trepidation as it did with Henman, because Murray has been in total control of the situation over the first week.

As he did against Ernests Gulbis on Thursday, Murray jumps out to an early lead over Victor Troicki, which gives him the confidence to begin carving up the court with his various changes of pace. The defensive forehand slice has become a staple of his arsenal, and while it doesn’t look like much, it’s tough to hit it past Murray, who can guard the entire baseline from his position of deep retreat.

The match is over in a hurry, but watching Murray hit a vicious side spinning backhand and follow it to net for a touch volley, I find time to ask: Is he the first player with a two-handed backhand to play like he has a one-hander? One thing I do know: The guy has grown up fast.

8:00: Centre Court

The roof has been closed as I’ve been speaking here, though no one is playing. It’s beautiful at first sight, and there's a sense of fun among the fans who stay and take photos of each other in what appears to everyone to be a brand new arena. Its historical and seemingly God-given atmosphere has been completely altered with one cosmetic change. “Is this Wimbledon?” is the question in everyone’s eyes.

The surface is brighter under the lights than it is much of the time under clouds, and the roof is held by triangular girders that descend surprisingly low. Knowing Wimbledon’s thoroughness, I can only assume they’re elevated enough to allow for a toweringly high desperation lob. You can take the rain out of tennis, but not the desperation.

What else will be lost with the roof? The sky, the clouds, the sun, a connection with something larger than life, which Centre Court in its old form, its form before today, seemed to be a part of. The old open overhang didn’t have the power to blot out the sky, but it did have the power to frame it. Maybe the best thing about the new roof is that we’ll appreciate even more the way Centre Court looks when it’s not there.

The static air, the tube lighting, the faint background hum of a thousand electrical outlets. By Thursday evening, there was no stopping me, I had to get out of the press room. I walked out and past the uniformed door monitors in navy-blue police caps that are too big for their heads—“Can I see your badge, sir? Thank you, sir”—just as the sun was beginning to disappear behind the media center. Its top half still sent a sharp ray into the eye. The big events of the afternoon were over, and all that was left were a few doubles teams fighting the encroaching darkness on the outer courts. Another day that had started with bright promise had stumbled to a tired end under the weight of too many tennis matches. Wimbledon felt woozy.

I sat down on a bench near what you might call the crossroads of the All England Club, a triangle bounded by Centre Court, the players’ area, and the media center. This is where the beautiful people pass you as they bound upstairs and out of sight, off to do whatever it is they do—sit and talk, as far as I can tell.

Next to me were three women in their early 20s, with accents that an American can only describe as “highly British.” They were working in some capacity at the tournament and were out for a smoke break. All three gazed up at the top of the TV centers, using their arms to shade their eyes from the sun. A blonde guy in jeans, somewhere in his 40s, was talking and gesturing into a camera.

“He is hot, you’re right.”

“I told you he was famous.”

“Hm, maybe I can knock into him on his way down.”

“‘Excuse me, sirrr, I’m so sorry I spilled my coffee all over you.’” They giggled.

I shaded my eyes and looked more closely at the handsome bleach-blonde TV star. Pat Cash. Figures.

For a reporter who grew up playing and watching the sport, this crossroads, which begins at your desk and ends at the press benches in the Center Court, is as close as you get to the core of the tennis universe. I’ve run this gauntlet many times trying to get to the seats before the end of a changeover. It involves a lot of bobbing and weaving between players, agents, officials, cigarette-smoking press types, and the various hangers-on that constitute the sealed society Peter Bodo once referred to as “tennisworld” before he created his own.

Who could be found traversing this rarefied location Thursday evening? There were no more must-see matches left, so this was rambling time for anyone still able to ramble. Fans, by the dozen, by the hundred—young, old, male, female, parent, child—passed each other in both directions in a constantly reforming mass. Every second someone went around a corner out of sight; every second someone new came into the view:

A bald black man, in an all-white warm-up suit and white sneakers.

A tan teenage girl with shoulder-length straight brown hair, braces, orange shorts, and a blue sweater with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows. She had the vicious ankle tan lines of a tennis player. She and a friend were throwing their heads forward and back as they laughed at some unheard joke.

A black collar, up.

Brown sandals with rolled navy trousers

A pink and white rugby shirt

Two ball girls, in their dark blue uniforms, the brims of their caps pulled over their eyes, leaning sleepily against a wall.

Andy Murray’s coach, Miles McLagan, his arms over the railing on the second floor of beautiful people land, keeping an eye on a match involving Andy Murray’s next opponent, Victor Troicki.

There were couple holding hands and parents being led by their kids. There was an Asian reporter on another bench in gray slacks with her head down and her legs curled around each other. There were linesmen in their yachting outfits. There was a woman in a bright red dress and an older couple in matching striped polo shirts studying the draw sheet together.

I looked for someone I could identify as a representative Wimbledon spectator. Hip young British types floated in and out—red-cheeked girls in sweaters, their straight brown hair pinned to the side; young guys in shorts past their knees, white shoes and no socks, with short spiky dyed hair—but they constituted maybe one in every 100 people. The sheer volume and variety of humans destroyed all attempts at categorization.

There was a dull buzz of talk all around, but only a stray sentence or two made it over to where I was sitting.

“Oh, please.”

“There’s more courts down there, should we try some of those?”

“She texted me to say she was here."

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

“We couldn’t get into that court.”

“I think there’s some doubles left over here, ooh let’s go.”

Two women in their 50s took the place of the girls on the next bench. Robert Kendrick walked by. “Oh, he played Murray,” one of the women said. They stared. “Wow, he’s really nice.”

A blonde preppy character in a blue suit, red tie, and aviator shades appeared to the left. The two women saw him coming. “Who’s this with the big teeth,” one of them said in a voice of bottomless scorn. His teeth were big, and he was flashing them as much as possible.

On the whole, the fans at Wimbledon are a little scruffier than those at the U.S. Open, and, reputation to the contrary, more varied—there are suits, there are ties, there are jeans, there are baseball hats, there are even bandannas. On the other hand, the employees are infinitely spiffier. The press section is guarded zealously, not, as it is in Louis Armstrong Stadium, by retirees from the Bronx in sweat-stained, oversized, untucked T-shirts, but by a female usher in brown-and-red military regalia, complete with cap, tights, and shiny black dress shoes. She stands with arms folded behind her back in front of the entrance.

“Did you make that your uniform yourself?” she was asked by a tipsy-sounding American fan the other day.

“Excuse me?”

“Is that a Wimble-ton uniform, or do you just wear that?” He and his friend chuckled.

“It’s military, sir.” She told them to go to the back of the line. She said please. They couldn’t think of anything to say and walked away.

A few minutes later a short, pudgy, prosperous-looking and overly tan British man in a bright striped shirt and an expensively cool haircut walked up and leaned against the railing where the usher was standing.

“Sir, the line starts over here, can you please move over here?” She gestured to the opposite railing from where he was loitering.

“I know where it starts,” he belched back sarcastically, without moving an inch. The usher sighed and shook her head.

Why do people come to tennis tournaments? Judging from the lost-looking, ever-shifting mass in front of me, you can spend a lot of time not knowing where the hell you’re going at one of these things. But you do see tennis balls hit eventually, and you don’t have to be a technical expert to be blown away by the perfection of the strokes that are on display a few feet in front of you. In that way, the tour really is a traveling circus, an exotic troupe of foreign freaks with science-fiction names who roll into town once a year and do stunning tricks for your benefit. It would also be silly to ignore that there’s a genteel sexiness to the display—athletic young people in white leap around on picturesque green grass as the sun sets over the trees in the distance. There are worse scenes to take in than that.

But I would say the tennis itself is mostly incidental. Walking to the All England Club each morning this week, I was passed by dozens of packed buses taking people to work. I kept thinking, “You’re going to work?” Of course this is the normal run of people’s lives, and my life, but that’s exactly what made it seem so dull. They were involved in their own lives, while the people walking down the hill with me were going to Wimbledon—an event.

In New York, the U.S. Open is an event. A ticket is a Manhattan status symbol. Wimbledon is bigger, at least from my vantage point, because it is an event for the nation. Snob appeal is undeniably a part of the excitement, but attending also means taking your own small and personal path and joining it to the world’s for an afternoon. You don’t have to know a forehand from a lob or Roger Federer from Roger Staubach to get a buzz out of that. Many of the people walking in front of my bench weren’t sure where they were going—“I think there are more courts over this way, come on”—but they were moving fast. They were enjoying the chase. This was their day away from the office and inside the gates, and they had to make the most of it. No matter how small the universe, it’s a fizzing, energizing pleasure to find yourself at the center of one for a day.

***

It's Saturday, the sun is back, and I feel like I haven't seen enough tennis this week. I'm hitting the grounds. Talk to you about it later.

It was a given that the story of the day would be the roof. Thunderstorms were in the forecast, and in the morning the All England Club slid its celebrated multimillion-dollar steel contraption across Centre Court. It may have been wishful thinking on their part. By the time a few of us walked over to check it out, the roof had been removed again. But the clouds continued to threaten, so I headed into the big stadium anyway. I'd never wished for a storm to hit at Wimbledon before.