Tennis - Wimbledon - All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, London, Britain - July 3, 2023 Groundstaff use leaf blowers to dry the court as the first round match between Serbia’s Novak Djokovic and Argentina’s Pedro Cachin is suspended due to rain REUTERS/Andrew Couldridge
LONDON (Reuters) - Frustrated fans were left wondering quite what was the point of Wimbledon's 80 million-pound ($101 million) Centre Court roof on Monday when Novak Djokovic's match was delayed for over an hour as ball boys took to using leaf-blowers to dry the grass.
Defending champion Djokovic had just taken the first set 6-3 against Argentina's Pedro Cachin when light rain took the players off and led to the roof being slid into place - a process that takes 10 minutes.
Fans and TV viewers expecting a quick resumption, however, were to be disappointed as, accompanied by tournament referee Gerry Armstrong, Djokovic patrolled the famous square of grass he has ruled for five years, dabbing a toe and a towel at areas he considered dangerously slippery.
While play resumed on Court One, it remained suspended on Centre, until, somewhat bizarrely, the roof, completed in a blaze of publicity in 2009, was re-opened and the match resumed after a 70-minute hiatus.
($1 = 0.7883 pounds)
(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, editing by Ed Osmond)
