Thursday at Wimby

19 June, 2008 | 17:06

Gorgeous weather down in SW19 today, and with drizzle predicted for the next few days (more, maybe) the guys cashed in with plenty of time on court.

First session of the day was down at Aorangi, where Andy turned up at eleven for a hit with Dani and Miles...

The Aorangi practice courts were pretty empty just a few days ago, but not anymore: each and every one is booked out all day, everyday.

I sympathise with the coaches who've got to juggle hitting partners for their guys with court availability.

Next door to Andy this morning, Lleyton Hewitt, hitting balls with a Mr F Lopez.

Early session of the day was pretty general: Miles and Dani giving him a workout on his groundstrokes; hit a few serves, volleyed a few too.

After an hour, their time was up, and they were straight to court 17 so Andy could play sets with Dominik Hrbaty.

If you don't know Wimbledon, the Aorangi practice courts are a short walk away...

 With just an hour on court, the guys got straight into it. Interesting match-up in terms of playing styles...

Andy played solid tennis and was 6-4 3-1 (as I remember) when they stopped.

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The ground staff are in there like a flash - before you know it the nets are down, the posts are out, and the grass gets a chance to recover.

To be honest, you can't sit anywhere without people putting the finishing touches to something...

No time to hang around; the guys were straight back down to Aorangi to finish their three hour block...

Stepped over a few shards of graphite along the way; turns out one of the other players had lost his temper and taken it out on his racquet.

Andy and Dani (fresh from another hit with Maria Sharapova) hit pretty intensely for another hour, before breaking for lunch and a team photo; took forever to get done, there's always somebody mucking around...

Got it done in the end, everyone had a bite to eat (£12 for pasta and a pepsi anyone?!), so Andy got a chance to see AI for a solid hour before doing his Wimby preview interviews with the press in the afternoon.

p.s Happy birthday AI.