MOWERS OUT AT DAWN BUT MAKE SURE GRASS IS 8mm!

WE WALk past plenty of A-list tennis stars, but not everybody here is a celebrity.

‘When the public arrive, we disappear into the background,’ says Martyn Falconer, head gardener, heckled by colleagues during his moment in front of the camera. ‘I’ve been here since 1999 — nine of us work full-time and we double that for the championships. People think it’s just a two-week job but we keep the site pristine all year.’

They source 20,000 different plants from south-west London to all over Europe, including 30,000 petunias. ‘I start at about 5am,’ says Falconer. ‘I have sleepless nights but as soon as that gate opens, I breathe a sigh of relief — we’ve done our job, everything is pristine.’ A private company performs analysis on each court. The optimum length of grass is 8mm, and the horticulture team gets daily data on this, plus ball hardness and its bounce.

‘The mowers are set at the same height every day,’ says Neil Stubley (left), head of courts and horticulture. ‘We’re in from 7am and it’s a bit of Groundhog Day for two weeks. We tailor each court to specifics. Some on the north side, for example, might be too hard so we can hold back on the watering, or give another more water.’