Novak Djokovic hit out at the Wimbledon rules during an awkward exchange with Denise Parnell (Image: BBC)
Novak Djokovic hit out at Wimbledon tournament referee Denise Parnell when she decided to close the roof on Centre Court at around 7.40pm local time after he went one set all against Felix Auger-Aliassime. When play continues into darkness, the roof can be closed on the two main showcourts to turn on the lights and complete matches.
But it was still light enough outside to continue the match with the roof open, and potentially even complete the third set before worrying about darkness. Djokovic tried to make that case to the referee, but his arguments went unanswered.
The No. 7 seed had won a marathon 82-minute opening set against Auger-Aliassime 12-10 in a tiebreak. But the Canadian earned the first break of the match in the second set, then served it out 6-3.
At that point, Parnell took to the court to inform the players and umpire that the roof was going to be closed while the score was level, rather than risking having to stop in the middle of the third set if it got too dark. But Djokovic disagreed.
“Why now? Why? The other day you didn’t want to close it until, like, 8.20, 8.30, and now you want to close it? You don’t want to get to 8.30? It’s 7.40 now. We can play a whole another set. Outdoors. We are an outdoor tournament,” he explained.
Parnell then referenced Jannik Sinner’s fourth-round match against Shintaro Mochizuki, in which they had to close the roof in the middle of the second set at 4-4 when it got too dark. “With Jannik, I don’t care what happens. I care about our match right now,” Djokovic replied.
During the seven-time former champion’s first-round match against Wu Yibing, the roof was also shut when Wu levelled the score at one set all, but it was almost an hour later, roughly around 8.25pm.
Felix Auger-Aliassime won the second set against Novak Djokovic (Image: Getty)
Addressing Parnell, Djokovic continued: “And you remember the first round? You didn’t close it until, like, 8.20, 8.30. And now you want to close it at 7.40. Where is the consistency? You’re so proud of your rules, and you’re not sticking to any kind of rule. We have no idea what the rule is.”
“Well, that was a very uncomfortable conversation Denise Parnell had with Novak Djokovic, tournament referee,” Nick Mullins said on commentary. Todd Woodbridge replied: “Rightfully so. Novak is right, we’ve got another 40 minutes. You can play a set within 40 minutes. I am a bit perplexed when – Novak is right – when every other night, we’ve played to a certain point.”
Tim Henman, who is also a board member at the All England Club, explained: “Looking out there now, could they carry on? They probably could. But I think from Denise Parnell’s point of view, she would like to have the delay in closing the roof at a convenient time, and that is end of set. Is there a possibility of then playing this third set, getting to the latter stages, when you’d need to stop, and it being at 4-4 or 5-5? So I think it’s a conservative time to shut the roof.”
Djokovic and Auger-Aliassime left the court while the roof was closed, and reappeared a few minutes later once it had shut. They had a quick warm-up before resuming the match at the start of set three.
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