'I've covered Wimbledon for 10 years but I've never experienced anything like this'

As the heat once more seared over Wimbledon and crowds struggled to cope - with at least one person fainting in the grounds today - we checked for ourselves just how uncomfortable it was to watch a match under the sun.

Every spot of shade within the grounds is today filled with fans desperate for some respite with temperatures soaring towards record levels.

Walking from the shadows and up the steps into Court Two felt like entering a sauna, as I settled down to attempt to follow Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti and Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili battle it out under the scorching sun.

Along with the smell of suncream, hundreds of hats, wafting fans and lines of umbrellas were the only repellants as crowds watched the pair somehow run around in the baking sunshine.

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It was 32C but felt way hotter inside the confines of the court. An occasional - and most welcome - breeze came all too late for me.

Cap on my head, shades and suncream on, and with a litre bottle of water in hand, I was dripping with sweat within minutes.

In a more familiar turn, tomorrow and the rest of the week could see rain hit SW19 but for today, as with yesterday, the brollies have so far been reserved as a barrier to the heat.

Wet towels were brought out for players at each change of ends - a move more typically associated with the baking sun of Melbourne and New York, or even Paris, during the other three Grand Slams of the year.

An elderly couple near me seemed to have been inspired. Wearing hats and shades, they dampened their neck chiefs and wrapped them around their shoulders.

Half an hour was enough so I moved next door to court 12 to catch some of Italy’s Matteo Arnaldi as he took on Holland’s Botic Van de Zandschulp.

Somebody had fainted outside this court just an hour earlier, with rumours of other spectators passing out in the open-aired outer courts.

Sitting at court level on a seat that felt like it had just come out of the oven, it was even worse there, and 10 minutes on I couldn’t take it. The water was gone and the sun cream had diminished.

I have covered Wimbledon for the past 10 years and can barely recall it being this hot. Its hottest day in history was 35.7C on July 1 2015. The Met Office said at 2.10pm that Kew Gardens recorded a temperature of 34.2C degrees.