Djokovic Calls For Earlier Start On Wimbledon Centre Court Amid Curfew Troubles
ATP
Novak Djokovic had to deal with the Wimbledon curfew in his fourth-round match and called for an earlier start on the Centre Court afterward.
Having a match split into two parts is never easy, especially, when a quarterfinal spot at the most prestigious Grand Slam tournament is at stake. The 36-year-old experienced that in his match against Hubert Hurkacz, which started on Sunday but was finished on Monday.
On Sunday evening, Djokovic sprinted into a two-set lead, and even thought there was still some time left on the clock before 11 PM, the tournament organizers didn't want to stop the match in the middle of a set and therefore stopped it before the third set started.
When the two returned to the Centre Court on Monday, Hurkacz was able to win the third set, but eventually, Djokovic proved victorious in four sets. After the match, he spoke about the Wimbledon curfew and a possible earlier start as that's the most-proposed solution to the current problem.
"I think so. I agree with that. Obviously curfew is probably something that is much more difficult to change, I understand, because of the community and the residential area we are in. I think the matches could be pushed at least to start at 12:00. I think it would make a difference."
The Wimbledon curfew is set at 11 PM local time, meaning that once the best-of-five match start around 9 PM, both players know that there aren't high chances of finishing it. While the Serb managed to do that against Stan Wawrinka, his effort against Hubert Hurkacz was stopped earlier.
"Yeah, I mean, once the time is over 20 hours, it's over 8:00, you know that there's a high probability you won't finish your match. That was the case against Wawrinka and Hurkacz. Both of the matches started almost actually 9:00. It was 20 to 9:00 or something like this, or 8:30 that we walked out on the court."
Giving an insight into how his life looks like when playing the last match on the Centre Court, the 23-time Grand Slam champion revealed that his warm-up starts already at around 1 PM. From then, the waiting time can be anywhere from five to possibly eight or more hours.
"I warmed up for both of those matches around 1:00, something like this. Should you go back to the accommodation, the house nearby, or should you stay. Yesterday I decided to stay. I stayed basically for seven hours waiting for my match to start."
While yesterday both matches that were scheduled before the Serb's match were decided in the last possible set, today, he had to be called on the court earlier as the match between Elena Rybakina and Beatriz Haddad Maia ended already after 20 minutes due to the Brazilian's injury.
"That's a lot. You never know what's going to happen. Today I'm thinking, I have at least an hour and a half. Then after 20 minutes, my match is called because there was a retirement in the ladies match before us."
While Djokovic has to deal with the scheduling and possibly waiting for his match longer than expected as everyone else, he's aware of the fact that that's the nature of the sport that isn't played in periods or quarters as other sports.
"It's tennis. That's the unpredictability of tennis in a way. You have to be ready for both scenarios. When I saw the matches that were played before me yesterday with Rublev-Bublik, and Swiatek-Bencic, I thought those matches could be long matches. But you don't know that. You can only predict. It's never a guarantee."
