Hate the roof at Wimbledon CC

[IvanisevicServe]

I, for one, can not stand the roof on centre court. I think it's a joke that they'd tarnish the most legendary stadium in tennis by building a freak'n retractable roof on top of it.

"Oh, but the rain delays!!!"

Did anyone ever consider the fact that it really doesn't do much good? If it rains for long periods of time during the first week, only one match can be played at a time, allowing for only 3-4 matches being completed on a day that would otherwise be rained out. The rest of the matches are still postponed and the tournament is still held up.

As soon as that roof goes up, the entire atmopshere that used to be "Wimbledon" goes out the door and we're left with some Halle-like indoor grass experience. Blech.

Imagine a Wimbledon final being played with the roof closed. And it'll happen at some point, too. Really sad for tennis IMO.

 

[FedExpress 333]

Whats really destrying wimbledon is they switched to green clay.....

 

[Sentinel]

It's okay, at least we get to see some tennis. You guys are so spoiled. Next thing someone will complain that the cloud cover makes it look like an indoor event and spoils the atmosphere

 

[Sentinel]

Whats really destrying wimbledon is they switched to green clay.....

Whats really destrying wimbledon is guys like Rafa winning it.

 

[1970CRBase]

I basically don't like indoor grass courts.

 

[ledwix]

Honestly, rain makes me hate Wimbledon sometimes. Rain delays are the lamest thing in all of sports, well....other than ties. I don't care about a roof looking bad. I want to watch tennis. It's awesome to be able to watch night matches at Wimbledon.

For traditionalists, where does the line stop? I mean, shouldn't we go back to wooden racquets and white balls and long pants?

 

[Li Ching Yuen]

I think it's a joke that you're not ip banned yet.

 

[IvanisevicServe]

Honestly, rain makes me hate Wimbledon sometimes. Rain delays are the lamest thing in all of sports, well....other than ties. I don't care about a roof looking bad. I want to watch tennis. It's awesome to be able to watch night matches at Wimbledon.

For traditionalists, where does the line stop? I mean, shouldn't we go back to wooden racquets and white balls and long pants?

The rackets aren't part of the tournament itself, though. That's just the changing of the times as far as tennis itself is concerned.

I could ask you the same question in reverse; I mean, shouldn't we just change the grass courts to hardcourts or clay, since there are so few grass tournaments left?

 

[ollinger]

The OP misses the point. The ungainliness of the roof is precisely a result of the club wanting to preserve the old court rather than knock it down to build a roofed stadium from scratch. This produced necessary architectural compromises. Unlike some other slam venues, they didn't have the space to simply put up a new roofed stadium.
As for whether it's pointless, the schedule the first week allows flexibility in scheduling in order to keep the tournament on time, especially as they can play on "middle Sunday" if necessary, as they did some years ago when there was much rain the first week. So in the second week, when there are fewer matches and TV time is more lucrative, they can keep on schedule with the roof.