All sporting enthusiasts love following Wimbledon. While the grass-court Grand Slam has been extremely entertaining in its early stage, the tournament organizers are receiving a huge amount of flak for the constant delay in the order of play due to rain. Already the likes of Ben Shelton, Felix Auger-Aliassime, and Francisco Cerundolo, among others, were forced to finish their respective matches over two days.
London has witnessed a massive change in weather over the past few weeks. During mid-June, temperatures in the city soared as high as 27 °C in a near-heatwave. Merely a few days before the tournament, the weather seemed to have been back in control with the day’s lowest temperature ranging between 9-11 °C. Unfortunately, The Championships’ commencement also resulted in sporadic showers in SW19.
Day 3’s schedule was postponed by more than an hour with rain playing spoilsport. Due to the delay, fans were understandably livid.
These tournaments make so much money and are too big to make inclement weather an annual problem
— Drondro (@Simbarashe45) July 3, 2024
They need to start matches earlier on the days the weather is good. They wait half a day to begin and then comes the rain
— Mia (@mementoo_vivere) July 3, 2024
One more year… the same shitty problem: “match delayed due to rain”…
Maybe the most expensivs tournament among all slams, and they simply can’t solve the rain question.
— Diogo Soares (@nova83473) July 3, 2024
Some angry social media users even gave their two cents, asking the organizers of the tournaments to build roofs over the other courts as well.
Build the f’cking roof already
— PoorConsult (@poorconsult01) July 3, 2024
Why can’t they build 10 court with coverings . This would be better for Roland Garros and Wimbledon
— Sabitzer (@Sabitzer3) July 3, 2024
Wimbledon is the most expensive tournament on the ATP and WTA Tour. Considering that two of the courts – Centre Court and Court No. 1 – already have retractable roofs built, the organizers are financially capable of covering the various other smaller courts in the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.
Building retractable roofs on the other courts seems like an obvious solution, something that the Wimbledon can afford. However, if this is done, the essence of Wimbledon will be lost, considering that the conditions begin to differ. As matches would then turn into indoor contests, the difficulty of playing on grass significantly decreases.
Players would need a different skillset to play on it and those who have an indoors-style of game, which involves more of power-hitting, would benefit more. Hence, adding the roof or not is an unfortunate dilemma that the organizers of Wimbledon have in front of them.
