Did you know...

• Wimbledon is the largest single annual sporting catering operation in Europe managed by around 1,800 staff. In 2009 they served: 12,000 Kilos of Salmon, 28,000 Kilos of English Strawberries, 30,000 Portions of Fish and Chips and 20,000 Bottles of Champagne. 
• Winners on every match since 1877 are held in the Wimbledon Information System; match results until 1990, and from then on, an increasing number of stats help commentators, players and others analyse every aspect of the game. 
• On average, 42000 balls are used and 650 matches are played at the tournament. 
• Approx 300 ball boys/girls each year. Ball Girls were first employed in 1977. 
• Yellow balls were introduced in 1986 for better visibility for the TV cameras. 
• Ball boys and girls train for 8 hours a week for 4 months prior to the champs. 
• 2010 prize money is £1M for singles champions, out of a total of £13.75M prize money in 2010. 
• Dunlop Slazenger has provided tennis balls for the Wimbledon Championship since 1902. 
• The famous Wimbledon turf is a mixture of 70% perennial rye grass and 30% Barcrown creeping red fescue. It is cut to a height of exactly eight millimetres. 
• The phrase 'love' in tennis is an Anglocised version of "l'ouef" it means "the egg" in French, referring to the shape of the zero. 
• 2009 Fastest serve speeds were: Men: Andy Roddick (USA) 143 mph (228.8 kph); Women: Venus Williams (USA) 124 mph (198.4 kph). 
• The roof over centre court weighs 3000 tonnes. 
• Around half a million spectators visit the All England Club during the Wimbledon Championships. At least 60,000 of these travel from overseas.
• IBM uses mobile phone apps to demonstrate the concept of ‘smart’ by enhancing the experience for visitors to Wimbledon. In 2009, IBM's smart apps won five marketing awards.

Another hectic day...

... some of it spent preparing photos from the photographers around the grounds. This year we have a revised set up, with a few of the photographers sending their photos wirelessly straight back to us. This has meant we can have photos from a match ready for the writers in a couple of minutes. Literally. It's a great improvement over the system we have used in previous years which would involve me and Rob sifting through maybe fifteen hundred images in a day to source the hundred or so that would be published to the site. It's as instant as you can get, short of the photographers publishing the images direct from the cameras.

I took more photos yesterday, another blisteringly hot day. I felt very tired, yet buoyed by the opportunity to get out in the open and capture more of the goings on around the grounds. I ended up overlooking Court 18 again, taking a few snaps of a doubles match. I also spent a few minutes at the foot of the hill to check out some of the characters in front of the giant screen. Here are some of the shots (the last three are taken through a gap in the shuttered screens that run alongside many of the courts here)...





































































Rain threatened to spoil today, but thankfully it held off after the initial cloud burst (before we left our rented house for work). Photos from the pros were fewer and further between during the day, so I was able to stretch my legs and find some more things to point my lenses at. I will process them tonight and post them tomorrow.

On a side note, my colleague Wibmbledon Blogger has been off ill today. I for one wish him a speedy recovery, as this blog is far more compelling with his input!

Testing times

Every live theatre production has weeks of rehearsals and practice runs, with a full dress rehearsal ahead of the opening night – and so does Wimbledon.

With the world’s press and millions of fans watching and commenting on every point played, IBM can’t afford to put a step wrong.

Testing usually starts each spring, followed by weeks of training for the people who will be gathering match data and statistics during the tournament, and then everything ramps up into full production for the Wimbledon fortnight.

But this year, the Icelandic volcano blew the spring testing schedule to pieces. One of the major suppliers was unable to fly over from Florida to do the testing in April. Not only could they not do the testing, they weren't able to bring with them several servers which are used for testing and then left here for the summer tournament. But this April, the volcano erupted and the UK’s airports were closed because of the ash clouds, and the schedule went out of the window. Fingers were crossed for several days - with updates every six hours - but then it became obvious that the team weren't going to make it, so large amounts of testing had to be done remotely.

The systems are critical to IBM and Wimbledon as they cover data entry, the recording of all scores and statistics, and the scoring system that accepts the data and sends it out to the official website and to the world’s broadcasters, including the BBC.

There are hundreds of machines here at the tournament – mostly laptops, but there are still about 100 desktops that are used for various things, such as the Internet kiosks around the grounds, and all of these have to be placed in the right location and configured properly. The kit gets refreshed every year, so it’s quite a task to get it right.

Despite the obstacles along the way, the system was put through its paces in the run up to qualifying week, and then a full dress rehearsal went ahead as usual.

And guess what..? All the IBM kit was in the right place, at the right time, and all working just as it should.

Hawk-Eye(s)

Say the words "Hawk" and "Wimbledon" together, and most people will think of Hawkeye, the high-speed multi-camera technology which tracks the trajectory of a moving ball.

But there is another type - Rufus, the Harris Hawk that is brought in to patrol the grounds and see off any would-be squatters (mainly pigeons, though I'm pretty sure I wouldn't argue with him if he wanted me to move on as well).

Deja views - early morning images from the second Monday.

Despite having the middle Sunday to catch up on much needed sleep, it's never enough for those working at the Championships.

A brave soul runs through his "Slow down - don't run" routine moments before the gates open at 10.30am.

"So...this idea of us setting up a department store together...what should we call it?"

The second week begins...

... and it is a warm and bright start. I wanted to post some of the photos that I took on Saturday, but am worried they are a bit similar to the ones I stuck up last night. Mind you, there was and is a good chance that they are similar, after all, the subject and vantage points hadn't changed since the last set. Nevertheless, I took them, so I might as well post them! I am hoping to get more time to write this week than I did last week...