For die-hard tennis fans, the hassle, uncertainty and queuing are all part of the Wimbledon experience. But does it have to be? There are several ways to get tickets— where total capacity is around 42,000—but none is straightforward. Pre-pandemic, fans from around the world could apply for a public lottery which closed the previous December. This year, those who had won the right to buy tickets in the cancelled 2020 tournament had them carried over, so there was no new ballot. Attendance is down 7% this year compared with 2019.

Members of the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), which governs British tennis, could opt in for a ballot to buy two Wimbledon tickets. For those who were lucky enough to get an allocation, it was then a six-step process to respond to a series of emails telling you how to buy tickets, then how to access them in the Wimbledon app. At each stage there was a time limitation (10 days for this or that). I had to set phone reminders.

Ballot-winners can’t be choosers and you take the date, court and seats you are offered or nothing. Returned tickets can be bought by others online, but these go fast, and there’s no guarantee. It would be nice to gift a pair of tickets to your significant other and tennis-crazy child, but if you are the lucky ballot winner, you have to be at the tournament in person with your ID. And don’t just click on the Terms & Conditions without reading. Last year, fans took to Twitter to express frustration when ticket purchases were cancelled because they had used the same credit card for more than one purchase, which was apparently verboten.

There are other ways to get to Wimbledon if money or time are no object. You can apply for a debenture, which gives the holder the right to a premium seat each day for five straight tournament years. The price of a Centre Court debenture in the 2020-25 series was £80,000, which rose to £120,000 in the month before the tournament. It could be a decent investment: debentures are the only tickets that can be legally transferred or sold. Last I checked, debenture tickets for this week were selling at around £2,700 or more. Getting hold of a debenture, however, even if you have the dosh to splurge, is not easy. It can take years.

The final option is to queue. A 2017 queue was reportedly 7,000 people long. The queue this year began on the Friday before Monday’s start. Ground passes gained this way cost only £27 and the Championship releases 500 tickets for each of the three main show courts each day along with an unspecified number of ground passes. But success can be elusive. Each year, there are stories of jolly campers, but I know many more people who are daunted by the prospect or don’t have time for it.

The other three Grand Slam events in the tennis calendar operate ticketing systems that don’t require advanced knowledge of game theory or saintly levels of patience. The US Open is the easiest, though the French and Australian tournaments also offer easy options. All have systems that help fans access tickets, provide some flexibility but restrict the ability of profiteers and touts to corner resales.

Why not Wimbledon? One difference is that it is the only of the four grand slams run by a private club. The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club is one of the most exclusive in the world, with only 500 members. The profits from the Championships are transferred to the LTA to fund grass-roots tennis; it amounted to £52.1 million in 2019. While more British players have broken into the top, tennis is still an expensive and exclusive sport in the UK, though.

For all the brilliance of the tournament, there’s more to be done. The Ralph Lauren uniforms, green-and-purple flower boxes, recycling bins and net-zero pledges project an image of both timeless tradition and hip modernity. But those rows of empty seats and the sight of long queues of punters reinforce a narrative that there is something both elitist and a bit backward about it all.

Wimbledon this year is as exciting as ever to watch, but also at odds with the sport’s attempts to be more inclusive. The overly complicated ticketing system recalls Mark Twain’s observation: The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of. Hopefully, Wimbledon will prove him wrong.

Therese Raphael is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion covering health care and British politics.