Many hours of queues at the entrance and complete unpreparedness for the rain. The 2023 tournament is in danger of being the worst in history.
London has a deserved reputation as a rainy city. This year, the legendary Wimbledon cannot be held normally in the capital of Great Britain. Moreover, regular precipitation is not the biggest problem of the main tennis tournament.
The management does everything to make the audience dissatisfied with what is happening.
“It was very strange”
On Monday, the matches of the first round of the Wimbledon main draw started, but not a single game day has yet gone well. Regular rains, despite all the achievements of science in the 21st century, continue to cause many problems for participants and spectators.
The situation looked especially sad on Tuesday. Of the 77 matches, only eight took place as scheduled. There has not been such a large-scale failure in the tournament schedule for 19 years. The last time this happened was in 2004, when heavy rains stopped the tournament for two days.
In a sad situation, not only the tricks of nature are to blame. The organizers also made a big contribution to the failure of the first days. Back in 2009, an expensive roof was installed on the center court of Wimbledon, but due to the fact that it was not closed on time, the grass got wet and had to be dried. Even Novak Djokovic helped the court workers, wiping the floor with a towel. As a result, the Serb’s match with Pedro Kachin was postponed for almost an hour and a half.
– It was very strange that for more than an hour the situation did not change for the better at all, – Djokovic noted in surprise after the game.
Novak Djokovic / Photo: © Visionhaus / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru
The organizers attributed the long delay to security policy. They didn’t want tennis players to get injured. At the same time, a closed roof in time would help to avoid problems.
Interestingly, the organizers made good money on the rain. The Daily Mail reports that the store at the tournament quickly ran out of cellophane raincoats for 8 pounds (912 rubles) and the simplest umbrellas for 24 pounds (2700 rubles).
To avoid dissatisfaction with the audience, the organizers decided to return the money for the tickets. The total losses of the tournament are estimated at 250 thousand pounds. But even here not everything is smooth. Many fans will receive only half the cost of the ticket, as they were present in the stands for more than an hour. Real robbery!
Photo: © Patrick Smith / Staff / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru
“This has never happened before”
Rain is not the only problem at the current Wimbledon. The new rules for admission to the stands led to the fact that many hours of queues began to accumulate at the entrance. The unlucky ones waited more than 10 hours. Someone did not wait at all and left.
All the delays are due to the fact that employees are required to meticulously check the audience for the presence of prohibited items. The list includes as many as 19 items. Fan Becky Deeming, who got into the stands only at two o’clock in the afternoon, having taken the queue for another half past four in the morning, did not hide the negative.
“Other people who have been going to Wimbledon for years and standing in lines say that this has never happened before,” Deeming was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
Photo: © Zac Goodwin — PA Images / Contributor / PA Images / Gettyimages.ru
The organizers had to apologize for what happened in the first days of the tournament. They thanked everyone for their patience, and also promised to rectify the situation in the near future with the help of the redistribution of human resources. Otherwise, Wimbledon 2023 has every chance of becoming the worst in history.
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2023-07-05 10:03:41
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