Play abandoned on outside courts at Wimbledon
Date published :
02 Jul 2012 - 20:17:58
Wimbledon chiefs face a fixture backlog after heavy rain forced play to be abandoned on every court expect the covered Centre Court on Monday.
The constant downpours in south-west London caused two delays, with the second coming just before 5pm (1600GMT), and at 7.45pm (1845GMT) it was announced that there would be no further play.
That left five men's singles matches to be completed on Tuesday, including world number four Andy Murray's clash with Croatia's Marin Cilic, which had been called off with the Scot leading 7-5, 3-1 on Court One.
French fifth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was trailing 6-4, 1-1 against America's Mardy Fish when play was suspended, while Richard Gasquet, the French 18th seed, was 6-3, 2-1 down against Germany's Florian Mayer.
The remaining men's last 16 matches -- Spain's David Ferrer against Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro and America's Brian Baker against Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber -- were cancelled before play was able to start.
Defending men's champion Novak Djokovic took advantage of the Centre Court roof to progress to the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 6-1, 6-3 win over fellow Serb Viktor Troicki while the rain fell outside.
All the women's last 16 matches were concluded, with second seed Victoria Azarenka crushing Ana Ivanovic 6-1, 6-0 in a match finished under the Centre Court roof.
