Basking your way in via the Wimbledon queue

By Michael Roddy LONDON (Reuters) - Laurence Higgins looked like any young man sun-bathing on a towel with his novel beside him on a balmy English Monday in June -- but what he was really doing was queuing for opening day Wimbledon tickets. For Higgins, who teaches philosophy at a secondary school in Cambridge, what is popularly called "the Queue" is his way to get into the world's foremost grass-court tennis tournament, where tickets are in such high demand that many are allocated by lottery. "I always do 'the Queue', I enjoy the flexibility and the freedom," the 26-year-old said as he waited with thousands of others sprawled on the grass of a parking lot across the street from the vast All England Lawn Tennis Club complex awaiting their turn to buy day tickets. "The Queue" is a Wimbledon tradition that allows thousands of people to buy ground passes or coveted show court tickets rather than having to win the chance to buy one in the lottery or from an allocation through a tennis club or other channel. Unofficial estimates said that with clear skies and temperatures in the mid-20s C (mid-70s F), as many as 10,000 people waited patiently in queues which snaked around the grassy parking lots and adjacent tree-shaded walkways. Mark Speake, 47, a software engineer from Preston, northwest England, brought his wife, 15-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son to queue for centre court tickets where they would see Maria Sharapova and defending men's singles champion Novak Djokovic. Although their trip started at 1:30 a.m. in order to arrive by about 5, Speake said it was worth it. "You can chill out and go back to sleep once you've got your place in the queue," he said. His daughter Hannah said she did not mind either, since the alternative to seeing tennis stars had been taking a school trip to a nuclear power plant. Although not a diehard tennis fan, Speake loves the atmosphere and traditions of Wimbledon. "It's a great thing, really, the fact that they make the players all play in white -- it's like it used to be in the old days." A bit further along towards the head of the queue for centre court, Matt Warden, 30, a pensions specialist from Salisbury, probably did qualify as a tennis fanatic, having seen all four grand slam championships, from Australia to the U.S. Open by way of Roland Garros and Wimbledon, in 2012. "It was an expensive year," he said, so this year he is limiting himself to Paris and Wimbledon. Warden said he had enjoyed the buzz at the French Open, but like Speake, feels there is something special about Wimbledon. "This is the one everybody wants to win, it's the one everybody wants to come to," he said. (Editing by Ed Osmond)