Wimbledon to play on middle Sunday for 4th time in 139 years

Wimbledon matches will be held on the middle Sunday, organizers said on Twitter, to try to clear the backlog after scheduling delays built up over the first five days of what has been a rain-ravaged tournament.

Even by London’s standards for gloomy weather, this year’s rain has felt particularly persistent, causing several matches at Wimbledon to be delayed or postponed throughout Week 1.

The decision by the All England Club to schedule play for Sunday night (AEST) comes with the result of four second round matches (one in the men’s and three in the women’s) still hanging in the balance when play was called off for Day 5.

Unlike in the past, when folks would queue up outside the club overnight to get seats, the tournament announced Friday that all tickets will be made available for online purchase in advance, limited to two per household, and none will be sold at the box office on Sunday.

The phenomenon began in 1991, since when the middle Sunday of the championships has seen play in 1997 and 2004.

Play will start at 11.30am on all courts, including Centre Court and Court One.

The situation became more serious on Friday as a rain-disrupted afternoon and evening saw the schedule badly hit. It rained all day on Saturday, and then they didn’t play on Sunday, either.

Thousands of tickets for Wimbledon’s People’s Sunday sold out in just 27 minutes. This time it could be a similar number, come the end of Saturday’s action. Henman now sits on the order of play committee at Wimbledon.

“A couple years ago I was scheduled to play Feliciano Lopez in the third round on Saturday, and I wanted to play him on Saturday because he was really exhausted”.

Williams takes on German Annika Beck second on Centre Court, after American Coco Vandeweghe’s match against Italian Roberta Vinci.

Others were continually waiting for tickets being told to “sit tight”.