Wimbledon | Novak Djokovic points out to his unfair treatment with Centre Court
Featuring just once in the Centre Court so far, unlike Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal who have played there all the games, Novak Djokovic has asked the All England Club to schedule it for his quarter-final game. The three-time champion will take on Kei Nishikori in the crunch clash.
While the aces like Federer and Nadal have enjoyed the exclusivity of the 15,000-capacity Centre Court this campaign so far, the three-time champion Djokovic has been robbed of. While his second round clash with Horacio Zeballos was pushed to the 4,000-seater Court Two, he has also seen himself scheduled on the court last that has the risk of fading light and the nagging burden of having to return the following day.
Hence, now with two quarter-finals being played on Centre Court and two on Court One, Djokovic has asked the association to
When asked if he was expecting his clash against Nishikori to be on Centre Court, Djokovic replied, "We'll see. Hopefully."
This isn’t the first time that the Serbian has been robbed of it. A year ago his last-16 match with Adrian Mannarino, which was scheduled for Court One, was cancelled despite the Centre Court with its retractable roof being available. Consequently, Djokovic had to play the fourth-round match on Tuesday and the quarter-final on the very next day as he was forced to retire against Tomas Berdych with an elbow injury.
Djokovic almost saw a repeat of it again on Monday when the organizers had surprisingly scheduled a mixed doubles match on the famous court that went till after the sunset.Â
"I heard that the organisers were planning to cancel my match if Gael Monfils and Kevin Anderson went to a fifth. Luckily for me, it didn't happen," Djokovic had said before his tie with Khachanov.