Novak Djokovic called on Wimbledon on Monday night to bring forward the Center Court start time by 90 minutes after his fourth round match was suspended on Sunday night.
The defending champion eventually beat Hubert Hurkacz in four sets, but is one of many players who want to finish on the same day.
“At least the matches could be postponed to start at 12:00,” said Djokovic, who asked for a change to the current kick-off of 1:30 p.m. “It’s tricky, once it gets past 8pm you know there’s a good chance you won’t finish your game.
“That was the case against (Stan) Wawrinka and Hurkacz. Should you return to the accommodation, the house nearby, or should you stay? Yesterday I decided to stay. I actually waited seven hours for my match to start.’
According to a recent lucky recipient, an invitation to Wimbledon’s Royal Box specifies that lunch will be served from 11:45am.
Novak Djokovic has called for center court matches at Wimbledon to start at noon
He defeated Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz in four sets, but the match entered a second day
He is one of many players eager to finish their games the day they start
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Early enough, you would think, for play to begin before the current 1.30pm Center Court kick-off, which has sparked controversy at this year’s Championships.
Hospitality for both All England Club VIPs and the much larger number of business guests is, it turns out, one of the main reasons why the start was delayed from 1pm two years ago. This move has contributed to late finishes and suspensions from main arena matches, which have impacted the results of the tournament.
Djokovic had to leave the field on Sunday night before returning on Monday afternoon to finish off Hurkacz in four sets, and he was lucky not to have to do the same on Friday night.
Bigger was the effect on another top attraction, Andy Murray. After taking three sets last Thursday while very much on the rise, a continuation would probably have seen him beat a tiring Stefanos Tsitsipas, who instead revived the next day.
During the post-match inquest, Murray’s assessment of the schedule was largely overlooked: “This is an outdoor tournament. They should do their utmost to play tennis outside as much as possible,” said the deflated Scotsman, who retweeted a post on Sunday calling for an earlier start time.
The existing guiding principle of ‘outdoors’ was confirmed on Monday by Chief Executive Sally Bolton, who described Wimbledon as ‘still an outdoor tournament’. to play later than us.’
So if this is still an outdoor tournament why does it limit the hours of daylight available to play in the largest stadium? It’s not the only Grand Slam with a large number of guests who might want a leisurely lunch, but Wimbledon really is an outsider. Play usually starts around noon on the main courses of the Australian, French and US Opens.
Andy Murray lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas in a two-day game last week
Murray also commented on the schedule, sharing a post calling for an earlier start time
Chief Executive Sally Bolton pointed out that the roof on Center Court allows later play
This trio, however, distinguishes itself by having separate night sessions. A less obvious contrast is that they are much more relaxed about the sparsely populated stands for the first game on the schedule. Wimbledon is much less so, for presentation reasons.
Amid the deliberately vague reference to “a number of factors” that go into scheduling decisions, Bolton said: “We have full lanes for when the players move through and that’s still absolutely our intention.”
And then there’s the BBC, the most important but not the only one among the broadcasters who like to play late into the night, even against the 11pm curfew if necessary. When the Beeb agreed to its latest deal that runs until 2027 – which costs license payers around £70m a year for the rights alone – it insisted that early evening primetime play was a minimum requirement.
While that can cause problems, it’s hard to argue that this hasn’t brought major drama for after-work viewers. The relationship between the company and the club is almost comically incestuous – witnessed by the number of All England members on the commentary roster – and they work closely together.
“The broadcasters are one of the stakeholders we are consulting, but no, they don’t have a direct input into track start time,” Bolton claimed. She also added that there was no prospect of a request being made to Merton Council to extend the 11pm curfew that has prevented games from being terminated in recent years. Some factions of local residents are already irritable enough about the current expansion plans.
Carlos Alcaraz’s match on Saturday lasted four hours as the game’s slow pace continued to creep in
Wimbledon’s deliberate rollback of the program is only half the problem, and the others are less under their control. That brings with it the wider problem of matches getting longer and longer, due to the slow pace of play creeping in throughout the year.
This trend went against modern viewing habits and caused four sets with Carlos Alcaraz to last four hours on Saturday, even on grass. A sport that resists innovation has seen 45 women’s matches run over three hours at this point in the season. By way of comparison, in the year 2000 there were none.
Senior figures at the tournament are particularly irked by the 25 second shot clock, which was meant to speed things up but has been generally useless. Referees are slow to push the button, and no restriction is left for the second serve.
Combine this with the delayed start of Wimbledon and you get late nights, suspensions and an identity crisis over whether or not this is an outdoor tournament.
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