Wimbledon attendees hoping to catch a glimpse of England’s quarter-final clash against Switzerland on Saturday will be out of luck after the tournament confirmed there will be no special measures.
The Chief Executive of The All England Club, Sally Bolton, confirmed on Monday morning that she will maintain the policy of focusing solely on tennis at the Grand Slam. Even though there will be high interest in the football match with England’s clash against Slovakia on Sunday generating an average audience of 14.80 million TV viewers on ITV1 (incl. ITV+1), according to the BARB. The peak viewing was 17.06M.
“We’re very much focused on the tennis, this has been the case in the past,” said Bolton.
“We won’t be showing the football on any of the screens here. We’re confident that everyone who’s coming here will want to watch the tennis.
“There will be no special arrangements.”
As for the tennis major, organisers confirmed they have no plans to follow in the footsteps of the Australian Open and French Open by starting the event on a Sunday. Those two Grand Slams now take place over 15 days to spread the first round matches out more evenly and minimise the amount of late-night finishes.
However, Wimbledon doesn’t have to worry about matches going into the early hours as the tournament has a curfew in place which forbids play from going beyond 11pm. The curfew was introduced in 2009 and is a Planning Condition applied to balance the consideration of the local residents with the scale of an international tennis event that takes place in a residential area.
“We’ve got no plans to start on a Sunday. If the sun would shine, I would say this (today) is the most perfect day to start. But it looks like it’s clouding over.”
One of the main attractions at SW19 this year will be Andy Murray who will be playing on the grass courts for the last time before retiring. The former world No.1 is set to confirm if he will be able to play his singles match on Monday evening following an intense recovery process. Murray recently underwent a procedure on his back to treat an issue that was affecting his right leg.
The decision of the Brit to leave it until the very last minute to announce his plans is a nightmare for those scheduling matches. However, Bolton weighed her support behind him.
“Andy has earned the right to make the decision about when he retires. All of us have therefore got to be agile in the way that we deliver our plans. But we’re really happy to do that. It’s very much for Andy to make this decision and they get the right time for him.” She said.
“We would love to see him on court. Of course, if he isn’t, we’ve got plenty of other tennis going on. But I know that the fans will be absolutely desperate to see him.”
Talks have already taken place about a special ceremony to celebrate Murray’s career but the AELTC is keeping quiet about what this might entail. Raising various rumours such as the possibility of Roger Federer attending.
One thing that appears to be in the works is a statue being created in honour of Murray, who in 2013 became the first British man to win Wimbledon in 77 years. He also won the title for a second time in 2016. As for where it may be, Bolton revealed that the location could be involved in its future expansion plans.
“I think as we reflect on the shape of these grounds and we think about the potential developments over the road, kind of incoming, we’ve got time to think about where any kind of physical celebration of Andy’s career might be.” She said.
“And in any event, we’d want to work with Andy on that. He’s really, understandably not ready to have those conversations just yet. So we will make sure we get this right because this is for all time. We want to make sure it’s right. And we’ll take our time to do that.”
