The brand-new unused Wimbledon roof may go through the entire fortnight without any real-world use with hot and dry weather forecast for much of the concluding week of the Championships.
Players have already put the sophisticated structure — which reportedly cost up to $120 million — out of mind as the grass-court Grand Slam gets to the business end.
Andy Roddick says players are not speculating about who might be first to actually play a match with the translucent structure shut.
”That conversation would be kind of a short one. There’s a roof. If it rains, it closes. Beyond that, we might as well guess what colour socks someone is wearing.
”I think the common joke has been that they haven’t had to use it yet. All this money and the weather’s been nice.”
Andy Murray was wondering for a few minutes at the weekend if he might be the first to get the honour as some dark clouds and some light drops rolled in during his third-round defeat of Serb Viktor Troicki.
But they were only temporary. ”It would have been a nice bit of history, I guess, [to play] the first match to play under the roof,” said the third seed.
”I wasn’t that worried by it, I enjoy playing indoors. Once it started to come down, a little bit heavier, it was sort of 5-3 in the third set. So, obviously wanted to finish it before the rain came.” said the straight-set winner. — Sapa, dpa