Fans’ frustration at the sight of hundreds of empty seats
TENNIS fans who missed out on tickets to watch stars including Andy Murray and Serena Williams have been left fuming at the sight of swathes of empty seats on Centre Court.
Hundreds of the best seats in the house were vacant on the sold-out court during the first days at SW19 despite Wimbledon returning to full capacity for the first time in three years.
Teething problems with digital tickets were thought to have impacted resales while rows of prime seating reserved for hospitality guests and club members were left abandoned.
Before the club can resell a Centre Court ticket, it needs to be handed back when the ticket holder leaves.
Most tickets are now digital, and carried on phones, so guests have to scan tickets instead to return them.
But visitors have slammed the club’s digital system as being ‘steam powered’ after struggling to scan tickets while others simply forgot to do so.
Stewards admitted there had been an issue at the start of the week which saw some staff scanning the wrong parts of the digital ticket.
Yesterday, there was still space on the show court with BBC presenter Sue Barker noting there were ‘lots of empty seats’ at the start of Emma Raducanu’s second round match.
Despite a late night battle which saw Serena Williams knocked out at the opening round, as well as Andy Murray’s impressive first round match, swathes of seats remained empty on both Monday and Tuesday night.
Paul Miller, 60, founder of Eden Mill, the official gin partner of LTA, yesterday admitted that some corporate visitors preferred to ‘drop in and out’.
Last night, those at the front of the queue for Centre Court tickets said they were ‘fed up’ after waiting in line for more than two hours.