The HSBC Road to Wimbledon is now in its 15th year, with the All England Club creating this event to support the LTA in providing more juniors with more competition and staging the Finals at Wimbledon on grass.
With nearly 800 clubs, parks and schools involved, seven regional venues and the Road to Wimbledon programs in India and China, the event has come a long way since its inception 2002.
It is great credit and thanks to all the local organisers, county officials and regional office staff of the LTA who have helped support the HSBC Road to Wimbledon.
The Finals take place between 8 – 13 August and will involve 144 junior players.
Track 1 is a draw containing 48 boys and girls, with the players having a rating of 10 to seven division on 1 April who qualified through their Club, Park and school via their County Finals.
Track 2 is a draw of 32 boys and 16 girls, with players rated six upwards on 1 April, and who qualified via the 7 regional venues. It also contains two boys and two girls each from India and China who qualified via their Road to Wimbledon events in Kolkata Masters and Nanjing China – both played on grass in their respective countries.
All players start with round robin matches leading to a knock out singles and doubles. All matches are on grass weather permitting!
Players, families and coaches get Tours of the grounds and museum visits as well as there a popular Players’ party on the Wednesday evening with this year a Pan Asian menu!
When we were in Nanjing the Chinese juniors had never played on grass before as there are only a handful of grass courts throughout the whole of China, but the ones in Nanjing were excellent.
In India the Masters was held at the famous South Club in Kolkata on their also excellent grass, where famous historical Davis Cup matches have been played over the years.
It is never easy coming out from your own country for the first time and in the last two years the Indian players have been very successful here at Wimbledon, so there is great interest this year to see if the UK players can stop the dominance in Track 2 of the overseas players.
The HSBC Ambassador Tim Henman and head Coach of the Club Dan Bloxham have been with us all the way in the UK and India and will be on site on the Monday, with Tim and Dan presenting a HSBC Road to Wimbledon clinic on Finals day to the juniors who were the runners up in the County Finals and just missed out on coming to the Finals.
All this activity is centralised at Aorangi Park adjacent to No.1 Court, where major construction is about to take place on the replacement of the No.1 Court roof to eventually have a sliding roof like on Centre Court.
On Finals day we have the Davis Cup Trophy Tour heading our way with the famous and huge Davis Cup on display.
So the scene is set for the HSBC Finals.
The 18 grass courts at Wimbledon Aorangi Park will be used to their maximum when the referees Denis Parnell and Peter Finn start scheduling the matches, and the ground staff have prepared the courts for the influx of juniors.
We even have a great team of court covering staff ready to cover the courts if it rains!
Rain at Wimbledon? ….no chance but we are always prepared!
Enjoy.