A SANCTUARY : Wimbledon Singles Finalists Have Their Special Little Waiting Room

The room is eight feet square. Five wicker chairs are arranged against one wall, and near the door are a desk and chair.

In the corridor outside, a single blue light shines when there is royalty in the stands just above.

The next two Wimbledon champions will emerge from this tiny waiting room, directly beneath the Royal Box at the south end of Centre Court, and walk out onto the most famous grass court in tennis to meet their destiny.

For a player, this room is a final sanctuary before he is surrounded by the tumult outside.

There are two television sets to follow the tennis action. Only two pictures are in the room.

In one of them, the one on the far wall, Maureen Connolly is holding the women’s singles trophy she won three consecutive times, in 1953-1955.

The other picture is a sketch of John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg waiting to play one of their finals.

In the drawing, McEnroe and Borg are talking to each other, which is purely an artistic device because there is no conversation in here.

The players are escorted from their dressing room to the waiting room. They follow a traditional path: Out the main entrance of the All England Club, up seven carpeted steps, through a set of swinging doors and inside.

Over the doorway through which the players pass from the waiting room to Centre Court is a quotation from Rudyard Kipling:

“If you can meet with triumph and disaster

“And treat those two impostors just the same.”