Wimbledon plans historic change
For all of the pandemic-related planning discussed for this year’s return of Wimbledon — much still to be determined, including fan capacity and prize money — Tuesday’s biggest news out of the All England Club takes effect in 2022: There will be play on the Grand Slam tournament’s middle Sunday.
In addition to creating a 14-day event by eliminating the traditional break at the midpoint, the decision forever alters what has come to be known as “Manic Monday,” the opening of Week 2 that made Wimbledon the only major tennis championship with all 16 women’s and men’s fourth-round singles matches scheduled for the same day.
Instead, under a plan organizers “intend to make a permanent part of the schedule,” the fourth round will be split between Sunday and Monday next year, All England Club chairman Ian Hewitt said during a video conference.
Next year marks a century since Centre Court was opened in 1922. Middle Sunday has hosted competition only four times, when rain disrupted the schedule and created a backlog of matches: in 1991, 1997, 2004 and 2016.
“We want more of this wonderful event to be available to more people,” chief executive Sally Bolton said.
This year’s Wimbledon singles main draw is scheduled for June 28 to July 11.
As of now, the plan is to reduce capacity to 25% of normal numbers — about 500,000 people attended the tournament across its 13 days in 2019 — but that could rise once the British government makes a determination on whether restrictions can be eased. That is anticipated around June 21.
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