Whopping $102,000,000 Effort Yields No Results as Wimbledon’s Prestigious Center Court Grapples With Lack of Basic Facilities as Lapses Leak Out

The Wimbledon Championships is well known for being one of the few tournaments with a retractable roof. Since the rains in England are quite unpredictable, a retractable roof was much needed. However, it has not been doing its job well this year. Since day 1 of the tournament, rains have plagued the grass courts and caused several delays. To add to the annoyance of the players, the roofs have not been doing their job well enough. For his first match, Novak Djokovic had to wait over 70 minutes to continue his match against Pedro Cachin.

Although the match was stopped, Djokovic did not stay put. The Serbinator decided to turn off the serious match mode for the time being and entertained the crowd with his antics. 

Wimbledon retractable roof irritates Novak Djokovic

During the first round bout at SW19, Djokovic was easily dispatching Cachin. But the action came to a screeching halt when the rains began. Usually, one would expect a delay of 10-15 minutes, but it took over an hour for their bout to continue. While the $102 million retractable roof came into action right away, it still took 70 minutes for the match to continue. 

Ball boys and girls came in with leaf blowers to dry the court before the roof could be reopened for the match to continue. Even the Djoker was quite peeved at how long it was taking for the match to continue, according to a report by The Telegraph Online.

“It normally takes 10 to 20 minutes when the roof is closed for the air conditioning to do its job and grass to dry,” Djokovic said. He further continued, “We saw that players came back after 15 minutes to Court One and resumed play. But we couldn’t. Too many places on the court were too slippery.”

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Although he was a little annoyed at the delay, Djokovic found a way to keep the crowd entertained.

When the crowd witnessed the Djoker in full flow

Famous for his humorous antics, Djokovic is often referred to as the Djoker. The Serbian player showed a glimpse of this persona during the rain delay. Instead of sitting down, Djokovic decided to amuse the fans when he picked up a towel and started to wipe the Centre Court. After that, he encouraged everyone in the crowd to blow to help dry the grass.

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Although the Serbinator tried to lighten the serious situation, several matches in the grass slam have suffered from heavy rains. The All England Lawn Tennis Club has an issue at its hand which needs to be solved quickly.