Ben Shelton takes 70 seconds to finish Wimbledon match suspended due to darkness – The Athletic – The New York Times

Tennis
THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, LONDON — Thursday night, Ben Shelton remonstrated with officials as darkness fell over Wimbledon, after the tournament suspended his second-round match just as he was about to serve for the win.
Friday afternoon, Shelton took one minute, 10 seconds, three aces and one unreturned serve to complete a 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 win.
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Though that’s not really true. His brain missed getting its full day of relaxation during a Grand Slam. He would have hit on his off-day anyway, but in this case, he had to mentally prepare for playing another two sets.
Later, he described his interchange with a tournament official Thursday night, who told him that the electronic line calling system was going to shut down in five minutes. Wimbledon deemed that wasn’t enough time to finish his match.
The 22-year-old American was four points from closing out his match against Rinky Hijikata on No. 2 Court, set to serve at 6-2, 7-5, *5-4, when a tournament official appeared on the court and told him the match was being halted for the night.
Shelton just about lost it, especially given he and Hijikata discussed the match’s being suspended at the start of the third set, and again three games later. Officials told them to play on, and then, at 9:30 p.m., told them to stop.
A spokesperson for the tournament said that “due to poor light it was not possible to continue and not an option to move to another court.”
“I was telling him, I only need 60 seconds,” Shelton said in his news conference Friday.
“That’s kind of what my goal was when I went out there today. Yeah, he told me there wasn’t enough time. I was like, ‘well, has it gone down yet, or did they give you the five-minute warning?’”
Shelton wanted to play until the system shut down. The official said they didn’t want to have to stop in the middle of the game.
In his news conference, Hijikata confirmed that he and Shelton and been unanimous in their desire to stop play.
“I think we both knew that we weren’t going to finish the third before it got dark,” he said.
“We both said to the umpire: ‘I don’t think we’re going to finish this set, I think we should stop now and come back at the beginning of the set the next day.’
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“I don’t know what the reasoning was, but they told us to keep playing. By 3-2 or 4-2 it was already dark. Then we were playing in the dark for, like, 10, 15 minutes. Again, it’s the same for both of us.
“It was slippery also. I asked the umpire as well in the third set to come check the court. Yeah, he said it was fine. I said, ‘mate, I think it’s slippery.’ Ben agreed,” Hijikata said.
Shelton also addressed how the official had stepped across his path as he went up to speak to the chair umpire.
“I don’t think that I ever get disrespectful on the court,” he said. “I guess when he saw a guy my size walking quickly towards the umpire, maybe he thought I was ready to throw hands or something,” he joked. “I definitely wasn’t.”
“It probably looked more tense than it was, the whole holding back or staying in front of me,” he said.
At the 2024 tournament, Leylah Fernandez of Canada and Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark were locked at 3-3 in the third set on Court 12 when their match was halted for light. They resumed, an hour later, under the roof and lights of No. 1 Court, and Wozniacki won the match. On Thursday night in London, the All England Club’s two courts with roofs and lights, Centre Court and No. 1, sat empty, though the lengthy shut down process, which involves covering the courts, had begun much earlier.
The decision to stop Shelton’s match came three nights after Taylor Fritz was told to halt his match at 10:20 p.m., rather than immediately heading into a decisive fifth set. He protested, arguing that the pace of the match suggested they could finish before Wimbledon’s 11 p.m. curfew, but officials — and his opponent, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard — disagreed.
Shelton will play Márton Fucsovics in the fourth round, a lucky loser who also had his match held overnight. Fucsovics beat Gaël Monfils in five sets, with the fifth played Friday.
(Photo: Mike Hewitt / Getty Images)
Matthew Futterman is an award-winning veteran sports journalist and the author of two books, “Running to the Edge: A Band of Misfits and the Guru Who Unlocked the Secrets of Speed” and “Players: How Sports Became a Business.”Before coming to The Athletic in 2023, he worked for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Star-Ledger of New Jersey and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He is currently writing a book about tennis, “The Cruelest Game: Agony, Ecstasy and Near Death Experiences on the Pro Tennis Tour,” to be published by Doubleday in 2026. Follow Matthew on Twitter @mattfutterman

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