UK NEWS

QUEEN JOINS RUSH TO SEE ANDY RULE OVER WIMBLEDON

Scot Andy Murray happy to get royal viewing

Friday July 3,2009

By David Pilditch

THE Queen could go to Wimbledon for the first time in 32 years if great British hope Andy Murray gets through to the men’s singles final on Sunday.

She is expected to be invited to watch the Scot, 22, if he wins today’s semi-final showdown with American Andy Roddick.

His achievements on the tennis court have already been acknowledged by the Queen, who sent him a letter wishing him well at Wimbledon and congratulating him on winning the recent Aegon Championships at Queen’s.

The last time the Queen was at the Championship was in 1977 to present Virginia Wade with the women’s singles trophy after the monarch and Prince Philip watched her exciting three-set victory over Betty Stove from the Netherlands.

The Queen’s only two other visits to the championships were in 1957 and 1962.

Murray is aiming to become the first British man to take the title since Fred Perry in 1936.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman last night refused to be drawn on the possibility of a royal visit, saying: “It’s pure speculation at this point.”

Meanwhile, police have been called in over a massive black market ticket scam as the scramble begins to be at the biggest match in British tennis history.

Tickets for the semi-final are being snapped up for a staggering £20,000 and yesterday Murray promised loyal supporters he was going to give it his best shot and put up the fight of his life.

The boxing fan has been psyching himself up by watching former world champion Floyd Mayweather, one of his favourite fighters, in action. Murray looked relaxed as he carried on his usual routine on the Wimbledon practice courts.

He insisted he was trying to ignore the hype surrounding one of the biggest matches in his career as Murraymania reached fever pitch across Britain.

But there were no queues at Wimbledon because no tickets will be available for Sunday’s final.

And while tickets were going on sale for thousands of pounds on the internet, the good news for fans is that they still have the chance to get their hands on Centre Court seats at face value.

The Ticketmaster website will be offering “several hundred” £100 tickets on Saturday evening.

Yesterday, it was revealed Scotland Yard detectives are investigating a website that has been charging thousands of pounds for tickets that do not exist.

One Romanian businessman was allegedly conned out of £11,000 and there are is believed to be up to 50 victims of the scam.

One site under investigation – onlinewimbledontickets.com – is almost a replica of the official Wimbledon website.

Centre Court tickets for the final were being offered at £2,499. The website, with telephone numbers in London and Ireland, takes the money online but does not deliver the tickets.

Their phone lines were dead yesterday but the website was still in operation. A Wimbledon spokesman said: “We have contacted the Metropolitan Police’s economic crime unit.

“They are working with us on that to see if we can get the site closed down.”

Genuine tickets sold legally were being offered by one website for up to £19,844 for a pair.

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