Venus praise for schedulers

Venus Williams hailed Wimbledon’ s decision to pack yesterday’s schedule on the two main show courts with women’s matches.

Centre Court and Court One both had two women’s clashes and one men’s tussle on their bills, with a third women’ s match also later moved to Centre Court.

It had been a similar story on Centre Court on Tuesday, when three women’ s matches and just one featuring men were played in the main stadium.

Both courts have typically had two men’s matches and just one featuring women during the early rounds for many years, so the change was a surprise for five- time champion Williams, whose second-round win over Alexandra Dulgheru came first on Court One.

She said: “I was really overjoyed when I saw the schedule. We have a lot of equal play on the main courts in the other three grand slams.

“It was just fantastic to see Wimbledon also follow suit. It’s wonderful to hopefully have that continue, to have equal for men and women.”

Her sister Serena Williams agreed. “I think it’s wonderful,” she said. “For so many years it was just two men’s, one women’s.”