Wimbledon chief, Richard Lewis
Wimbledon chiefs, Richard Lewis insisted again Monday that the men’s final will start at its traditional time despite it clashing with a potential England World Cup triumph.
The All England Club has come under increasing pressure to rethink its 6.30 pm IST start time for Sunday’s men’s singles final, with the football showpiece in Moscow kicking off at 8.30 pm IST. Should England defeat Croatia in Wednesday’s semi-final then the national team will feature in a World Cup final for the first time since lifting the trophy in 1966.
“It is purely our decision to stay. It will stay this year, it will stay next year,” said All England Club chief executive Richard Lewis.
Defending champion Roger Federer, who is more than likely to be playing in Sunday’s final, even joked that maybe the World Cup final should move to accommodate the Wimbledon title match. “I’m more concerned the World Cup final will have issues because the Wimbledon final is going on,” said the eight-time champion after seeing off France’s Adrian Mannarino in straight sets on Monday.
“They’ll hear every point, Wow, Love-15, 15-30. The players (at the World Cup) are going to look up in the crowd and not understand what’s going on at Wimbledon! That’s how important Wimbledon is to me and to us over here,” Federer stated.
Lewis added that there were no plans to show either Wednesday’s semi-final or Sunday’s final at the World Cup on Wimbledon’s giant TV screen attached to one of the sides of Court One. Last Saturday, England made the semi-finals with victory over Sweden as action at Wimbledon took place.
“Saturday was one of the most special days I can remember at the championships. The tennis was very good and there as an historic football match going on,” added Lewis, saying, “People followed the football on their devices thanks to modern technology without disturbing other spectators. You can tell when England scored and it was wonderful but we didn’t receive any complaints that the enjoyment of tennis had been spoiled.
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