Wimbledon attendance hit a nine-year low in its opening week as miserable weather deterred ticket holders from turning up.
The first four days of the tournament, regarded as one of the highlights of the British sporting calendar, were attended by 155,845 tennis fans. This is the lowest turnout since 2007, when 148,986 attended.
It was also the first time in 12 years that attendance fell below capacity on two consecutive days – the last time was in 2004, which was severely hit by bad weather, resulting in play being held on the middle Sunday.
The All England Club pinned the blame solely on the dreary conditions. “It’s absolutely the weather,” a spokesman said. “It’s worth noting that capacity has been reached every day in terms of sales.”
Event organisers are understood to be considering hosting matches on the middle Sunday, which if it goes ahead will be just the fourth time in the tournament’s history play will be held on the seventh day of the week. But any decision to open the All England Club for a “People’s Sunday” will not be announced until Saturday afternoon.
The capacity is 39,000, but on Tuesday and Wednesday attendance fell below this figure meaning some who had bought tickets chose not to turn up. However, attendance exceeded 39,000 on Monday and Thursday, meaning enough fans arrived for tickets that had been returned to be resold.
This year’s attendance is down by 16,706 compared with the same period last year, when 172,551 fans arrived at SW19.
The rain continued to disrupt the outdoor courts on Friday, with only a handful of points scored before play was halted. Play was disrupted on Tuesday and Wednesday but the weather improved on Thursday, allowing matches to start on time.
Light patches of rain on Thursday caused tempers to fray. Frenchman Gilles Simon lost his cool with umpire John Blom midway through his defeat to Grigor Dimitrov over playing in the rain. He voiced his concerns at playing in such conditions and was heard saying he would sue the umpire if he was forced to continue and got injured.
The weather forecast for Saturday is for further rain in the early afternoon, which could worsen the growing fixture pile-up, increasing the chances of the doors opening on Sunday.
