SW19 fans’ fury as four more quit

WIMBLEDON fans were left shortchanged and angry yesterday as injured and uninterested players crashed out of abandoned or quick-fire matches across the men’s singles — but still banked £35,000 each for their ‘work’. Both the showcase men’s matches on Centre Court — where the cheapest tickets cost £56 on day two of the Championships — ended before two sets had been played. Three-times winner Novak Djokovic, the world No 4, was on court for 40 minutes against Martin Klizan before the Slovak quit at 2-0 down in the second set. Seven-times winner and crowd favourite Roger Federer was in action for only 43 minutes against

Alexandr Dolgopolov, who quit at 3-0 down in the second set.

In all, seven players have now pulled out of the men’s singles this year.

Klizan went into his match with a calf problem. Dolgopolov hobbled off with an ankle issue. As he threw in the towel, a groan echoed around the 15,000 people in Centre Court. They had made their pilgrimage to the grandest arena in tennis in the hope of seeing the best players and had to settle for back-to-back call-offs instead.

Janko Tipsarevic called it quits after 15 minutes — the shortest match of the day — when he was 5-0 down in the first set against American Jared Donaldson. The Serb will collect £35,000 prize money as a first-round loser. That equates to £2,333 per minute of play.

Tipsarevic insisted players get paid ‘basically nothing’ while competing in Challengers all year as they try to earn a maindraw invite to Wimbledon.

‘You have a lot of players who fought their way to be in the Wimbledon main draw by playing Challengers,’ he said.

‘You pay your coach and all the supporting things — I’m one of them. This year I made a huge jump from 600-whatever to 50-60 or whatever my ranking is now, mainly through Challengers. Because I invest in my team and everything, I am more or less breaking even.

‘So if a guy, who, all his life is playing Challengers, has a chance to play Wimbledon main draw, where the first-round loss is £35,000, I don’t think anybody has the right to judge him or to say: “You didn’t do the right thing. You’re unfair for going there, picking up the cheque”.

‘That same guy probably next week, if he drops, he needs to pay his coach and all the other expenses to go to a Challenger where, if he wins, he gets 150 euros or 300 euros.’

Dolgopolov’s efforts before he stopped earned him £814 per minute and Klizan made the equivalent of £875 per minute.

Djokovic pointed out that it was clear Klizan had a health problem before a ball was hit. This raises the issue of whether players are going on to the court in the knowledge they might not stay the course in order to collect prize money.

‘I heard Klizan had issues

even before walking on the court,’ said djokovic. ‘You could see he wasn’t moving. Once the ball was a couple of feet away from him, he let it go.’

Gaining access to the main draws of Grand Slams is now so lucrative, with prize money now so high for falling at the first hurdle.

Australian Nick Kyrgios came under fire on Monday after he, too, withdrew during his match. He arrived in SW19 with a hip injury and completed only two sets of his first round match with Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert, losing both.