The empty seats dotted around the Centre Court were vacated only long enough for a quick trip to gather glasses of cold champagne and punnets of luscious strawberries delivered fresh from Kent just a few hours earlier.

The storm clouds of the financial crisis might have gathered over the rest of Britain but the sun blazed down yesterday on SW19, this green and pleasant corner of West London, where the birdsong and polite applause of the spectators is drowned out by cash registers with the “ker-ching” of millions of pounds changing hands.

Recession, what recession? Wimbledon, that annual sporting embrace between an adoring British public and the world's tennis players, has risen above the terror of the credit crunch. While the long queues in towns up and down Britain are usually located outside the local Jobcentre, the line outside Wimbledon was a queue for tickets worth their weight in gold. More than 14,000 queued on Monday night and there were as many last night, waiting patiently in glorious evening sunshine.

The only sign of financial pain is in the corporate tents where executives of the All England Club admit that “demand has softened”. Unofficial estimates calculate that corporate bookings are down between 10 and 20 per cent as companies slash their budgets for entertaining. Even if they have the money to spend, they are too embarrassed to spend it on such frivolity.

But Wimbledon's loss in the corporate entertainment tents is outweighed by huge gains at the turnstiles. Attendances on the first day of the championships soared to a record 42,811 and the concourses were packed yesterday with jostling spectators. There were long queues at the champagne tents, while the Wimbledon shops reported a massive boost in takings, including for the highest-priced items, with Ralph Lauren polo shirts selling fast at £95.

If this is riding out the recession, the rest of the country should try it. Already there is talk that last year's profit - or “surplus”, as it is described here - of £25,666,827 will be surpassed.

That is no surprise to the leading sports executives who have been wringing their hands as they watched the collapse in sponsorship deals and ticket sales around the globe. Applications for tickets before Wimbledon were up 18 per cent and the sale of 2,500 five-year debenture seats for the Centre Court, at £27,500 each, was oversubscribed. The debenture issue raised almost £60million.

“Wimbledon is simply a golden-ticket event,” said George Pyne, president of IMG Sports and Entertainment, the world's biggest sports marketing agency. “The hospitality industry has been badly hit around the world and it is difficult to get sponsorship.

“But tennis has survived in better shape because of its range of sponsors and its global reach. But there is no greater reach than Wimbledon. Corporate hospitality remains a great way to meet customers. I am bullish about sport and think it will come back but Wimbledon remains at the pinnacle.”

Adding a roof to the Centre Court has only increased the value of potential television deals because Wimbledon can now guarantee play even when the rain falls.

Tennis has withstood the economic storm better than most sports, although the women's tour will be tested at the end of the year when the title sponsorship comes up for negotiation. Sony Ericsson paid $88million (now about £53.5million) over six years for the last deal and agencies will be watching to see whether the mobile phone company or a new sponsor will be willing to match that number.

Few sports are such a draw - although the British Grand Prix last weekend at Silverstone showed that hospitality sales are not the only payday available. Corporate tickets were down about 20 per cent, yet Silverstone still managed a record crowd of almost 128,000 on race day.