Thanks to some good and generous friends I was able to enjoy a Centre Court seat at opening day of the Wimbledon Championships, where I was able to see the great Roger Federer and Lindsay Davenport go through with ease, and the Great British hope Elena Baltacha go out just as speedily.

On the way back I read that the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, which runs the Championships, was complaining that tickets for the finals were selling at £700 on eBay, and urging that re-sale of tickets should be made a criminal offence. (Oh, no, not another.)

They've got themselves into the same pickle that Live8 did, which we reported on earlier. If you set the price of tickets too low, you have to ration them. Wimbledon does it by a ballot every year, where hundreds of thousands of hopefuls put their name into the hat for the right to buy a show-court ticket. But is that the best way?

It certainly means that the All England Club is missing out on a wodge of money. They would make far more if they sold the tickets for what they were worth - up to £700 as we now know. And that is cash that could be used to improve and extend the facilities and allow more people to enjoy the tennis. And indeed, improve coaching for Britain's young and promising players. Indeed, with better facilities and more people going to the Championships, you could actually keep prices down - which the Club is keen to do - and generate the same revenue.

Also, remember that there are many avid tennis followers who miss out on Wimbledon every year because they fail in the ballot. So that doesn't help the fans that Wimbledon wants to help either. They'd be better off if they knew they just had to save up and they could buy a ticket like anyone else. Millions of people make sacrifices in order to buy season tickets to their favourite football club, which is fine: why are other public events so keen not to use the market?