By Pete Bodo
Howdy. I'm just dropping by to tell you that Rosangel will be going out to the All-England Club on Sunday, to cover the Centre Court Celebration - an exhibition match organized in order to give the Centre Court's new roof a trial run. It's like one of those roof-raising parties, I guess, although in Wimbledon's case, the roof isn't being raised, it's being closed. My first reaction when I read about this plan was that whatever else might happen tomorrow, the one thing it won't do is. . .rain. That's okay, Wimbledon officials are going to close the roof anyway, for the best of all reasons - because they now can!
This is how it's all going to come off: The gates at the club will open at noon to allow the sell-out crowd of 15,000 inside (the tickets sold-out within five minutes of going on sale, and it's going to seem like bizarro world when it turns out that all those people will be hoping that it. . . rains. Which it won't do, right?). The offficial "programme" will start at 2:30 pm (although the press release doesn't contain that familiar caveat. . . 2:30 pm, precisely). At that point - God willing - the roof will slowly be ceremonially closed. Another weird thing about this drill is that we're accustomed to celebrate openings, not closings (as in, Grand Opening, Free Gifts to First 50 Shoppers!)/
Anyway, at about 2:35, about 15,000 fans will be staring at the sky, open-mouthed, as the sliding steel trusses at the north and south ends of the Centre Court slowly begin to unfold and stretch the 40 per cent translucent fabric roof over the court. Think of a fully compressed accordion slowly opening up, or those neat paper shades you got at Home Depot. For those attending, it's going to be a little like that time your dad drove the family out to the airport, to watch the big jets taking off and landing. Only the fans at Wimbledon won't wearing earplugs, and they'll be breathing in the scent of grass instead of jet fuel.
The roof was designed to maintain pre-existing levels of light and air to the court, thanks to lighting that is installed in the roof and an air-flow system that will keep condensation from making the court treacherously slippery. The air-flow system will pump the equivalent of 8 litres of fresh air per second per person into the arena to keep the environment pretty much the same as it is during open air play. It will take 8 to 10 minutes for the roof to close, and another 20 to 30 minutes for the air management system to create the desired environment. So you're looking at a good 45 minutes between the time the roof begins to close and play resumes. You can read more particulars on the roof over atmy post for ESPN (it should be live this morning).
You may be wondering why so much is being made of adding a roof to Centre Court; this surely is the first time any major tennis outfit has scheduled a "celebration" for an inanimate object. I mean, it's a little different from, say, Fred Perry Night, or a U.S. Open Jimmy Connors tribute. It makes sense, though, because of the air-flow issues. There's no real way to tell how well - or poorly - the ventilation system works until it's employed under tournament conditions. 8 litres of fresh air per second for each of 15,000 people over a typical three-and-a-half hour match is a lot of fresh air.
The participants in the tennis exhibition (a mixed doubles, followed by a men's and a women's singles) will be Andre Agassi, his wife Steffi (who now seems to prefer "Stefanie," which to me is not an improvement, unless she somehow gets paid by the letter), Tim Henman and Kim Clijsters. It's an odd collection for this particular event, don't you think? Graf has more Wimbledon titles (7) than the rest of the crew combined. In fact, the rest of the crew combined has a measly one title between them, the one Graf's husband Agassi earned. How are poor Kim Clijsters and Henman going to feel in that opening mixed doubles, playing with those two? BTW, ESPN-360 will be broadcasting the event.
I assume that Andre and Stefanie are playing mixed as a team, and I sure hope somebody briefed them on the perils of a husband and wife playing mixed together. And you know what the best thing about this is? Tim Henman finally gets to play on Wimbledon's Centre Court on a Sunday!
Over to you. . .
PS - Keep your comments On Topic; you can discuss the action in Madrid over at the Crisis Center, next post down,.