10 Things I Learned From Wimbledon 2013

3. Never Close The Roof On Murray

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There have been many iconic images from this year€™s Wimbledon from Andy Murray lifting the trophy, Lisicki€™s tears in the final trying to serve even to the hair of Andy Murray€™s girlfriend however the one moment that we will see replayed for many years is the image of Andy Murray sat in his chair having a heated argument with the tournament referee.

In the second men€™s semi-final Murray was up against the heavy serving underdog of Janowicz and having dropped the first set Murray had battled hard and was up two sets to one by half past 8 UK time. The first men€™s semi-final had taken almost 5 hours to complete as a result it was starting to get dark so the tournament referee as he had done earlier in the tournament decided half 8 was the cutting off points for the lights to come on and the roof to close.

The problem was it takes 20 minutes for the roof to close and Murray felt the key swing and momentum was with him after winning the third set. This was a vitally important match so a pretty big call to make and it was painfully clear to everyone watching Murray didn€™t agree with the decision. He felt it would give his stunned and losing opponent a chance to rest up and get his head back taking away all the momentum Murray had built up winning the last two sets.

The sight of him sitting down arguing his point with tournament referee Andrew Jarrett is one of the moments that will be on montages and clip shows for years to come. Mr Jarrett had a point about the fading light and it€™s quicker to put the roof up before the dark becomes a problem rather than ruining both players by letting them play until they can€™t see the ball. However he could have cost Murray the semi-final, it was an important stage and if Murray€™s anger had distracted him he might well have lost.

Andrew Jarrett€™s call could have cost Murray the match and then of course his historic Wimbledon victory think about that his roof call could have changed history

Contributor
Contributor

Ian Newby is a average nerd living in the north of England, if given the chance he would spend all his life sat watching every single football match he possibly could before catching up on nerd happy TV shows then playing videos games all night, thankfully he doesn’t do that.