IT’S as traditional as the strawberries and cream, the barley water and the lack of a British winner.

The queues of hundreds of fans in their tents and sleeping bags outside SW19 for those last remaining Wimbledon tickets is an annual sight.

But after three cold nights, one Winchester woman’s determination proved it was first come, first served, by netting a place at the front of the queue for the All England Championships.

And it was the thought of cuddling up to tennis ace Roger Federer that kept her going!

Fiona Porter beat thousands of tennis fans to be first through the gates at the prestigious tournament on Monday morning.

The 34-year-old nursery nurse was joined by fans camping at nearby Wimbledon Park who were given ‘queuing cards’ to mark their position in the line.

Fiona, who pitched her tent last Friday evening, was joined the following morning by her friend Helen Gorman from Swindon, who she met on Roger Federer’s official website.

Proudly clutching her No 1 voucher to ensure her spot on Centre Court, where she watched her hero and defending champion scrape through the first round after a five-set thriller with Colombian Alejandro Falla, Fiona said: “I got here at 8pm on the first night and had to stay overnight on my own.

“It was quite scary but it’s all part of the fun.

“It was freezing at night — I Camping out: Fiona Porter makes sure she’s first in the Wimbledon queue to see her favourite player Roger Federer, inset imagined I was cuddling up to Roger when it got really horrible. There are a lot of us here so it has been quite fun. I’d certainly do it all again for Roger.

“I have queued for tickets for three years running now but this has been my longest stay. I’ll be camping for the second round and quarter-finals too.”

Tens of thousands of fans flocked to the site in SW19 for the first day of Wimbledon fortnight.

Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam tournament to sell on-the-day tickets for fans hoping to catch some worldclass tennis.

There were just eight British players — six women and two men — taking part at the start of the tournament.

In all, up to 500,000 people are expected to pass through the gates over the fortnight and eat more than two tonnes of strawberries every day.