Wimbledon won’t budge on World Cup final clash

LONDON: Wimbledon chiefs insisted again Monday that the men’s final will start at its traditional time despite clashing with a potential England World Cup triumph but will have no objection if the Centre Court crowd want to take sneak peeks of the action from Moscow on their phones.

The All England Club has come under increasing pressure to rethink its 2pm (9pm Malaysian time) start time for Sunday’s men’s singles final with the football showpiece in Moscow kicking off at 4pm in the UK (11pm Malaysian time).

“It is purely our decision to stay at 2pm. It will stay this year, it will stay next year,” said All England Club chief executive Richard Lewis.

However, Lewis said he would have no objection if many of the 15,000 fans inside Centre Court wanted to follow the football on their devices — as long as they did not disturb the players.

“Our attitude is if people aren’t affecting other people’s enjoyment of the tennis because they’ve got it on silent or whatever, or they are listening with an earphone, or whatever, that’s fine,” he said.

Defending champion Roger Federer, who is more than likely to be playing in Sunday’s final, joked that maybe the World Cup final should move to accommodate the Wimbledon title match.

“I’m more concerned the World Cup final will have issues because the Wimbledon final is going on,” said the eight-time champion after seeing off France’s Adrian Mannarino in straight sets on Monday.

“Saturday was one of the most special days I can remember at the championships. The tennis was very good and there as an historic football match going on,” added Lewis.

“People followed the football on their devices thanks to modern technology without disturbing other spectators.

“You can tell when England scored and it was wonderful but we didn’t receive any complaints that the enjoyment of tennis had been spoiled.”

“I am sure the same again will happen on Wednesday — and hopefully on Sunday.”