Kem Cetinay was excited to do his job at Wimbledon (Picture: Instagram)
Thousands of fans have started shuffling towards the Wimbledon gates after Love Island star Kem Cetinay opened the first checkpoint for day one of the championships – because why not?
The show’s 2017 winner, who played once again in this year’s Soccer Aid, started a short countdown with accompanied clapping before yelling, ‘Let’s go!’ and running through an arch in excited fashion in Wimbledon Park.
He flashed a grin to the cameras, after introducing official event steward Pete who was there to help him with the formalities of his job.
Although Kem’s may not exactly be the first name you would naturally associate with the prestigious tennis championship, the 27-year-old, who has pivoted into presenting after his reality TV triumph, was there with radio station Capital.
So it now makes a bit more sense.
The star shared his brutally early start to get there in time to his Instagram stories, photographing his car ride to Wimbledon in pitch darkness and posting to his Instagram stories with a timestamp of 3:56am – ouch!
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The Love Island star endured an early wake-up call for the gig (Picture: Instagram/kemcetinay)
He was clearly very excited to be opening the gates to the famous tennis championship on day one (Picture: Instagram/kemcetinay)
He then showed off a little look at his presenting hut as he explained he was there as part of the station’s partnership with Vodafone.
‘Hosting duties today,’ Kem wrote alongside an emoji wearing sunglasses.
‘Speak to ya soon @romankemp,’ he added.
The presenter later shared a video from Capital where he explained: ‘I’m in the queue here at Wimbledon with Vodafone – we’re going to be opening the queue for 2023 Wimbledon. We’re chatting to my muck Roman in the studio, we’re having a good time.’
Wimbledon’s queue is a fixture each year for the tournament as eager would-be attendees line up with the hopes to snag reasonably priced day tickets to the All England Tennis Club’s grounds and courts.
Kem presented from the front of the queue (Picture: Instagram/capitalofficial)
As the gates were declared open, he excitedly ran through them (Picture: Instagram/capitalofficial)
The host was taken his role seriously (Picture: Instagram/capitalofficial)
First in the queue, Julia Barker, 47, followed the celebrity with her green queue ticket, stamped number one, alongside her husband Nicky, 54, and son Dan, 23.
The family, who have lived in Ireland for more than 20 years but are originally from Latvia, have been camping out since 7.30am on Saturday.
Dan told the PA news agency: ‘We didn’t expect to be first.’
He said they had hoped to secure tickets for Centre Court or Court One.
‘Then we realised there was nobody here,’ he added.
Spectators had been warned to pack rain jackets and umbrellas to brace for scattered showers but there was sunshine and blue skies in south-west London on Monday morning.
Kem was hosting for Capital, which made slightly more sense (Picture: Instagram/capitalofficial)
Home fans have six British players to cheer for on the first day of the tournament – Dan Evans, Jodie Burrage, Katie Swan, Jan Choinski, Harriet Dart and Liam Broady.
Novak Djokovic will also play his first match on Monday as he starts his bid for his 24th Grand Slam singles title and eighth Wimbledon win, the latter of which would equal Roger Federer’s record.
Clare Balding will this year succeed Sue Barker to become the BBC’s face of Wimbledon after the latter called time on 30 years of presenting national coverage from the All England Club last summer.
A look at the vast queue on day one of Wimbledon this morning (Picture: Amer Ghazzal/Shutterstock)
Former England cricketer Isa Guha will share presenting duties and has backed Balding as an ‘ultimate professional’.
The competition will run from Monday July 3 to Sunday July 16.
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Not necessarily one we would have predicted…
