Ben Shelton Wimbledon scheduling farce shows All England Club must change approach
What can you do in seventy seconds?
The answer, if you are Ben Shelton, is that you can hit four big serves to clinch a second-round win at Wimbledon – 15 hours after last picking up a racket.
In the form of his life, and at a career-high ranking, 10th seed Shelton was always a heavy favourite for his round two match against Rinky Hijikata, an opponent 77 places below him in the rankings.
And the match was largely in Shelton’s control, with the American moving fairly calmly towards a 6-2, 7-5, 5-3 lead on Thursday night.
Then, things took a rather odd – and controversial – turn out on Court 2.
Serving to stay in the match, Hijikata impressively saved three match points to hold serve and force Shelton to close it out on his own delivery.
But, despite potentially being just four deliveries from victory, the 22-year-old was denied the chance to close out the match.
At 9.29 pm London time, play was bizarrely suspended due to darkness, despite the proximity of the end of the match.
All that meant that Shelton and Hijikata had to return to Court 2 on Friday afternoon for what ultimately proved to be one service game, the American closing out a 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 victory thanks to three aces and one service winner.
After a five-minute warm-up, it took Shelton just over a minute to close out the match, so physical concerns for round three on Saturday are unlikely to be a concern.
But, unsurprisingly, he admitted to some frustration about how the situation had been handled.
“It’s normal [playing over two days], especially playing this long format,” said Shelton. “Sometimes that’s just the way things shake out.
“To stop when you’re serving for the match, isn’t as ideal. I thought we could have stopped earlier. My opponent was complaining since the end of the second set.
“It seemed like there was better times if they knew they were going to stop it, to stop it before it got to that point.
“I think whether it was 3-2 or 4-2 or after the second set, there was plenty of time. But I understand the tournament has to make whatever decisions they have to make. As players, we just have to kind of go along with it.
“I had a calculated approach with how I was going about my service game. I wasn’t really going for four aces. The first serve was supposed to be forehand body. I missed my spot a little bit left. He guessed to the backhand. He full-out guessed for the T.
“It ended up being an ace. Once I get my first ace in a service game, my confidence goes through the roof. After that I started going for aces and abandoned the plan we had.
“It was supposed to be a body serve. The second point I wanted to hit a slower slider out wide. I think I missed a T serve that I went for, like, 147. I kind of just improvised as it went.”
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Shelton’s pragmatic approach to the situation is admirable, but there is a wider issue at play here.
Wimbledon’s curfew is at 111pm, something that should not really be argued against.
Unlike its Grand Slam cousins, the All England Club is based in a largely residential area, and the curfew is designed to minimise disruption for those who aren’t just here for two weeks a year.
And, considering the impact that late-night, or perhaps early morning, finishes can have on a player, having a designated cut-off makes logical sense.
However, what makes little to no sense is not playing until that cut-off, if needed.
In all likelihood, Shelton would have closed out the match just as quickly last night as he ultimately did on Friday afternoon.
What happened here was a colossal waste of time not only for Shelton and Hijikata but also for the fans on Thursday, who were unfairly denied the chance to see the match completed, and for the fans on Friday, who got to see just a brief glimpse of it.
Some would argue that if there is an official curfew of 11 pm, play should continue until then.
The introduction of floodlights is something that could enable that but, as Shelton highlights, that could cause other issues.
“Anytime that it gets dark or the sun goes down, you don’t have the heat on the court, it gets slippery, and it gets dangerous.
“For me, the slipperiness was the first problem in the back of the court before the light was a problem. Honestly, you probably don’t need lights here. It’s a scheduling thing.”
Regardless of whether floodlights are the answer or not, there is no doubt that Wimbledon dropped the ball here.
Whether it’s calling the end of play earlier, introducing floodlights, or moving to a different court, a situation this farcical should not be repeated.
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