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Wimbledon defends non-play Sunday decision |
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08:31, July 03, 2007 |
Wimbledon tournament referee Andrew Jarrett has defended the All England Club's decision not to play matches on the middle Sunday despite rain delay.
Bad weather in the past week has left the tournament behind schedule. Since no matches were arranged on Sunday, a flurry of third and fourth round ties were thrusted into Monday.
However, rain hit the championships again with over 100 matches planned.
"On Saturday morning we were absolutely where we wanted to be from a singles point of view," Jarrett told BBC on Monday.
"Saturday itself was bad but it takes a long time to set up a middle Sunday here," he added, "I think we'd have needed to be in substantially worse shape to have gone for a middle Sunday."
Wimbledon have played three previous times on middle Sunday, in 1991, 1997 - when Tim Henman famously defeated Dutchman Paul Haarhuis 14-12 in the deciding set - and 2004.
Jarrett remained positive looking ahead to another possible week of wet weather.
"I actually can't worry about it, simply because it's something we can't control," said Jarrett.
"All we can do is look ahead in terms of forecasts for the next 24 hours and act at the maximum capacity, which we're doing.
"We've got 11am starts even on Centre and Court One, we can do no more.
"At some stage we have to hope for a break in the weather and let's get through some matches and assess each day as it comes."
Source: Xinhua
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