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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Alexandra Topping and Emine Sinmaz

Wimbledon apologises to tennis fans caught in queue chaos

A man in a straw hat and red shirt lying on grass in front of a dense queue of people behind temporary plastic fencing
People queueing on Monday for the first day of the 2023 Wimbledon championships in south-west London. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

Wimbledon has apologised and taken urgent measures to address chaos in the entry queue on Monday, after fans complained of long queues and a lack of communication before the start of the tennis championships.

The south-west London event drew 42,815 spectators on Monday, the largest crowd since 2015, compared with 36,603 on the opening day of 2022. Michelle Dite, the operations director at Wimbledon, said 11,500 people had joined the queue on Monday and the large attendance plus extra security measures had slowed entry into the grounds.

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