Wimbledon’s slippery grass has been a long-standing recurring theme, with Serena Williams and Andy Murray famously falling.
Novak Djokovic, 37, became the latest player to fall to the ground when he slipped and ended up doing a split during his fourth-round match on Monday.
The former world number one blamed the closure of the performance venue’s roof, saying the grass had become “slipperier” and caused the injuries.
More than a dozen players have slipped on the course so far this year as nearly a month of rain fell in the first week of play.
Former U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu slipped and had to take a medical timeout during her fourth-round match against New Zealand’s 23-year-old Lulu Sun on Center Court on Sunday. Not long ago, on Court 1, Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov slipped in the first set against 28-year-old Daniil Medvedev, leaving him limping and forcing him to withdraw. .
With only two dry days in the first week, the roofs of Center Court and No. 1 Court were closed for much of the game. Eight players slipped and fell while the roof of the show court was being covered.
“Once you close the roof, it feels like we’re playing an indoor grass tournament here more than [an] Honestly, outdoors. I basically play every match indoors,” Djokovic said after beating Denmark’s 21-year-old Holger Ruhn on Monday night.
“But once you close the roof, you know the grass becomes slipperier. So players are more likely to fall. Unfortunately, some falls caused some players to withdraw, such as Dimitrov [on Sunday]. we saw [Alexander] Zverev also suffered a minor knee injury in the last game. It even bothered him [on Monday].
“It’s part of this surface. You can’t really change that. I mean, this is grass. It’s an active surface and it reacts to different conditions (humidity).
Earlier on Monday, All England Club (AELTC) chief executive Sally Bolton denied the slip was caused by the roof being closed.
“Two roofed performance venues, the venue is very dry, the roof is not significantly open – there is no moisture there,” she told reporters. “In both show pitches we have a complex mechanism to keep the air in the right conditions to keep the pitch in the right condition.
“The systems have been working hard, but working well, so we’re not worried about the courts.”
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She said the grass “gets wetter” during the first few days of the tournament, but the courts tend to dry out after wear and tear.
“But that’s the nature of the grass pitch itself, not any special conditions caused by the wet weather we’ve experienced,” Bolton added.
Wimbledon previously said there were 600 air distributors pumping dry air into the pitch to prevent condensation forming on surfaces.
Former world No. 4 Greg Rusedski defended the field. “It’s called grass, you should slip,” he told reporters as he prepared for a doubles match at the Mixed Invitational Tournament.
“Everybody says, ‘Oh, the bounce was bad.’ God almighty — go play the 1990s and the last century. You expect a bad bounce, it’s not supposed to be perfect. Grass courts have never been like that. Beautiful. Also, you have to look at how grass works…you’re going to slip, it’s part of the business and you have to deal with it.
The situation also made headlines in 2021 when Serena Williams slipped and was forced to retire, and Djokovic later complained that he couldn’t remember falling so many times on the court. In 2013, several players, including Maria Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka, slipped one day.
