Wimbledon 2019: Crowd at All England Club is well-behaved and knowledgeable, but not as uptight as one would expect

“Quiet please” is an expression that is often associated with tennis, but it could well have been the catchphrase of Wimbledon alone. Whenever I’ve seen those two words, I’ve always imagined them being said in a British accent, followed by pin-drop silence that’s only punctuated by the sound of a racquet hitting a ball. Surely Wimbledon’s austere, snobbish crowd has got to be perfectly suited to the line?

After spending a week doing the rounds of every possible court at The Championships, I’ve realised the answer to that is both yes and no. Yes, the Wimbledon crowd can sometimes be well-mannered and uptight to the point of boring. But they can also raise a din to match the best (or worst) of them when the situation calls for it, inserting themselves into a match the way only a tennis crowd can.

One of the first matches I watched at this year’s tournament was the first-rounder between Coco Gauff and Venus Williams, played on Court 1. The atmosphere was just what you’d want it to be like at your first glimpse of a prodigious wonder kid pitted against a legendary veteran. There was massive respect for Venus and her place at Wimbledon, as every winner she hit was greeted by loud applause. But there was also a sense of amazement at what the 15-year-old at the other side of the net was doing. Gauff wasn’t the crowd favourite at the start, but by the end, there were enough people behind her – almost as though they just wanted to see how far she could go with a little support.

When Gauff was put on Centre Court – for her third round match against Polona Hercog – there was no mistaking who the crowd wanted to win. After Gauff saved those match points (two) in the second set, the noise started resembling that of a rock concert. The applause for the young American was so thunderous that those seated in the neighbouring Court 1 later reported being able to tell when exactly Gauff won every one of her points.

I was particularly curious about how the crowd would react to a Nick Kyrgios’ match. The maverick Australian is known to intensely polarise the tennis universe. But surprisingly at Wimbledon he is seen more with an indulgent air than an admonitory one. While there were a fair few “Nick, what an idiot!” comments from the crowd, those were accompanied by smiles and occasional shaking of the head. The crowd seemed to want Kyrgios to be more focused, without being particularly offended by his antics.

And what did they think of Kyrgios’ infamous underarm serve? When he first tried it against Rafael Nadal, he was roundly cheered. But when he tried it a second time, he received nothing but boos. I found that a little hard to explain, as did Kyrgios himself when asked about it after the match. Maybe it was just Wimbledon’s way of saying they shouldn’t be put into rigid boxes.

The smaller outside courts make for an even more fascinating case study. For one thing, everyone seems to know or at least be interested in all the players; even for a match between Yanina Wickmayer and Shuai Zhang on the remote Court 16, you’ll find enough people craning their necks while standing outside the seating area, trying to get a peek at the action.

For the courts with a larger seating area – like Court 12 or 18 – the crowd is largely silent and businesslike. These are the people who deliberately choose to stand in queue to watch middle-tier matches involving the less glamorous stars. They know their tennis, and are unlikely to engage in the fanboyish behaviour. That said, if there are fans from the country of one of the players – for instance the Swiss fans in attendance for Belinda Bencic’s match against Alison Riske on Court 12 – then you can expect to hear loud name chants and raucous cheering from at least one section of the stands.

Those loud fan groups can actually be found on practically all the courts. Marcos Baghdatis attracted an army of vocal supporters whether he was on Court 14 or 18, while Christian Garin had his share of Chilean fans out on Court 17. In that respect Wimbledon is not very different from the other Slams; when a popular player is in action, the exuberant support follows one way or another.

Speaking of popular players, how do the Big 3 fare on the partisanship scale? Roger Federer predictably attracts the loudest cheers, while Nadal and Novak Djokovic are not far behind. The queues to get into any match involving one of these three are invariably ginormous, and there’s almost never an empty seat in the stands – even if they are playing borderline unknown entities like Lloyd Harris or Denis Kudla. But the perception that these three (or maybe the perception is just about Federer?) remain the crowd favourites even when playing a local player, isn’t completely true.

When Federer went up against Brit Jay Clarke in the second round, the crowd support was divided, or perhaps even slightly skewed towards Clarke. Wimbledon doesn’t abandon its own, even if they are up against a demigod.

They didn’t abandon Daniel Evans either, even though his match against Joao Sousa in the third round went long into the evening. In fact, the atmosphere for that match was possibly one of the best in the first week. Every completed point – irrespective of who won it – was met with an eruption of noise, and by the end, all anyone seemed to want was for the match to go on forever.

It finally ended under the closed roof and bathed in the beautiful white lights of Court 1, with Sousa pocketing the fifth set 6-4. But after the initial moment of disappointment at Evans’ loss, the crowd stood as one to applaud both the victor and the vanquished. Everyone was just so happy to be part of such an experience, that it almost didn’t matter that the son of the soil had lost.

That in effect sums up the general atmosphere at Wimbledon. Maybe it is because the crowd skews a little older than the other Slams, but those thronging the gates at SW19 seem to care more about the tennis than the players or the occasion.

The spectator vibe at the All England Club is not as easygoing as that at the Australian Open, not as passionate or demanding as that at Roland Garros, and certainly not as boisterous as that at the US Open. It is also a little different from the crowd at another big tournament held in London. The O2 arena at the ATP Finals is filled largely by young fans and suited-up office-goers who are just looking for their daily dose of entertainment – which isn’t quite the case in this part of South West London.

Unlike all these other tournament crowds, the Wimbledon one is polite, knowledgeable and heavily immersed in the action on the court. Yes, they are soft and subdued for the most part, and are fairly likely to descend into silence even before the umpire says “Quiet please.” But give them some high-quality tennis or heart-tugging emotional drama, and they will make sure their voices of appreciation are heard loud and clear.