Rain-ravaged Wimbledon to hold matches on middle Sunday

But he was broken there, and they headed to a tiebreaker.

Doubles now best of 3 in 1st round after 1 day of rain.

Third-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska is playing Kateryna Kozlova in a first-round match.

“Sunday play is being considered but a decision won’t be made until tomorrow”, a spokesman for the All England Club said Friday.

That set up Nishikori against Marin Cilic, who beat the Japanese star in the 2014 U.S. Open final.

The day’s doubles matches were also scratched from the order of play, as the tournament looked to find a way to get through the first-round singles that were held over from Tuesday.

The backlog then was such that of the 376 matches that should have been played by the end of Saturday, only 262 had been completed.

The 24th-seeded German beat Mikhail Youzhny of Russian Federation 6-4, 3-6, 6-0, 4-6, 6-2.

In the women’s side, the Wimbledon campaigns of Timea Bacsinszky, Sloane Stephens and Petra Kvitova are all on knife’s edge, with the former two involved in three-setters while Kvitova, the two-time champion, is in deep trouble having dropped the first set to Russian Ekaterina Makarova 7-5.

There could be play at Wimbledon on its middle Sunday this year for the first time since 2004.

The retractable roof since fitted over Centre Court virtually rules out a similar rescheduling being necessary in the future.

Novak Djokovic isn’t out yet.

Only a few points were played before rain interrupted the action on Day 5 at Wimbledon. But he managed four breaks of serve, compared to three for Wawrinka.

The No. 1-seeded Williams’ fine was from her second-round victory on Friday.

This year is the 25th anniversary of what was dubbed “People’s Sunday” – when the general public could buy tickets on the day for the showcourts.

There will be matches at Wimbledon on the middle Sunday for only the fourth time in the tournament’s 139-year history because of rain delays all week.

Some ticket-holders will be able to get money back for Day 3 of Wimbledon because of all the rain.

They will be priced at £20 each for ground passes to outside courts, £40 for Court One and £70 for Centre Court.

Play did restart on the outside courts, but not enough matches in the singles tournaments were completed to avoid the use of the middle Sunday.

Such unique days can see the Wimbledon atmosphere ramped up by the enthusiasm of fans who have never been to the tournament and seize the unexpected chance.

There is tennis being played at Wimbledon – on one court, anyway.

The brief window was sufficient for Andrea Petkovic and Tomas Berdych to complete their first-round matches, which were among 30 left either unfinished or yet to start when a wet-weather interruption cut short play on Tuesday. Bacsinszky had been trailing 1-0 in the third set, but won all six games played on Saturday.