Stella Artois Tennis Championships

One of the perks of living in Baron's Court is being near (indeed we can see it from our roof!) to the Queens Club Tennis grounds; until this summer the home of the Lawn Tennis Association.

Every June Queen’s Club kick-starts the grass court season with the Pre-Wimbledon warm-up, the Stella Artois tournament. (http://www.stellaartoistennis.com/default.asp)

As residents in the area, the club gave Grigoria & me a free evening pass to view some of the games.
Unfortunately due to the draw the only big name player we saw was Mark Philippoussis who, by the time we found our seats, had all but finished off Sebastian Grosjean 7-6, 4-6, 6-3.

Following that we settled into a doubles match between Bhupathi/Stepanek and Black/Coetzee, which turned out to be more eventful than we anticipated as Stepanek had to retire due to illness in the first set.

Undeterred we found ourselves some seats to a different court in time to watch the more lively (mainly due to the Italian supporters!) doubles match between Ginepri/Kerr and Braccili/Ljubicic.

Despite the rather moody weather we’ve been experiencing lately the sun broke through long enough for us to enjoy a summer evening outdoors and mingle with the other tennis fans.

Who knows, maybe next year we may even get to centre court. That is if we actually buy a ticket!