Tennis: Roof to be built over Wimbledon

by JOHN ROBERTS


A retractable roof is to be built on the centre court at Wimbledon.

After years of debate over the subject - and countless rejections of the idea - Wimbledon has finally decided to go ahead with the project to safeguard the commercial viability of the world's most prestigious tennis tournament.

Details of the All England Club's "innovative plans for the centre court of the future", including the timescale of the project, are due to be announced on January 6.

Rain delays are synonymous with the annual fortnight of the championships, along with overnight ticket queues, strawberries and cream and Pimm's.

However, the All England Club committee has finally decided to take steps at least to guarantee play for centre court spectators and a worldwide television audience.

Television has been crucial, as broadcasters have grown increasingly frustrated by weather interruptions.

The project looks certain to include provision for floodlighting, though it is understood there are no plans for night play. Architects HOK has already begun work on the scheme. It was the lead architect for the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, which has a retractable roof.

For years Wimbledon had refused to consider installing a roof. However, Tim Phillips, the All England Club's chairman, underlined his committee's changing views on the subject before this year's tournament in June, when he said: "We know that it is physically possible to build a roof, as has happened elsewhere.

"We also owe it to tennis fans to investigate all the possibilities for play to take place even if it is raining."

This contradicted Wimbledon's previous philosophy that putting a roof on the centre court was out of the question because it ran a 19-court championships, not a one-court event.

Tennis Australia's decision to put a retractable roof on the centre court in Melbourne - when the Australian Open moved to a rubberised concrete court in the city from the grass at Kooyong in the suburbs in 1988 - began to change that perception.

Even so, Wimbledon decided against a roof for the new court one in 1997, the same year in which the towering, roofless Arthur Ashe Stadium at the United States Open was inaugurated in New York.

The fiasco caused by rain delays at this year's US Open in September, highlighted by embarrassing scenes of the rubberised concrete courts being dried with hand towels, may prompt the US Tennis Association to reconsider.

Melbourne Park, the home to the Australian Open, now has retractable roofs on three of the show courts in case of rain or extreme heat.

The French Tennis Federation plans to put a retractable roof on a new court at Roland Garros, in Paris, the site of the French Open, where play is possible on the clay courts even in light drizzle.

Wimbledon, unlike the three other Grand Slam championships, is played on grass, hence Phillips' caution when previously discussing the option of a roof.

"Above all else it is essential that the microclimate created within the court by such a structure does not adversely affect player safety [through slipping on damp grass] nor the grass growth," he said earlier this year.

Two years ago, Tim Henman's semifinal against Goran Ivanisevic took three days to complete as the weather continually interrupted their match. Many observers felt that Briton Henman would have won had the weather not intervened.

Instead, Ivanisevic triumphed and went on to clinch the title.


- INDEPENDENT