No night shift for Wimbledon

It will come as a relief to

tennis fans who like their

sleep to know that Wimbledon

has no intention

to follow Australia and

put on an Insomniacs' Open.

Even when the new Centre Court

roof comes into use in 2009 there

will be no designated night sessions

of the kind that have seen the

world's top players performing in

the middle of the night here.

The issue of ridiculously late, if

money-spinning, separate evening

matches has again been brought to

the fore by the record-breaking

epic between Lleyton Hewitt and

Marcos Baghdatis which finished

at 4.35am on Sunday morning.

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That followed the 2.05am finish of

the third round clash between

Andy Roddick and Philip

Kohlschreiber the night before.

Long evenings mean that Wimbledon

regularly hosts matches

until 9pm.

In the event of rain

delays, they will be able to go on

even later to finish a contest under

the roof being constructed.

However, as an All England Club

spokesman confirmed last night,

there are no plans to stage separately

ticketed night games which,

with tennis being an open-ended

sport, can go so deep into the night.

Hewitt's five-set triumph over

Baghdatis was a memorable epic

that had nearly 10,000 spectators

staying to the end, confirming this

city's reputation as the most

sports-mad on the planet.

Yet with Melbourne Park fast

turning into a giant bed and breakfast

haunt, organisers were yesterday

forced to defend themselves,

not for the first time this fortnight.

The most specific charge was of

failing to communicate properly

with Hewitt and Baghdatis, who

were initially told they would be the

first match of the evening session

once Roger Federer's five-set test

by Janko Tipsarevic was finished.

But Venus Williams and India's

Sania Mirza declined to shift their

match to the secondary court.

So

the men were forced to wait until

11.40pm, after Williams' straight

sets victory, to start the most

hyped match of the event so far.

The great wonder is how, in a

country that is a world capital of

petty regulations, the health and

safety brigade did not put a stop to it.

Hewitt was said to have got to

bed at 8am and his supporters

were anxious about how he would

recover for his fourth round tie

against Novak Djokovic due today.

Tournament director Craig Tiley

was forced to admit that Hewitt

and Baghdatis had been led to

believe they would be going on

after Federer, prior to the refusals

of Williams and Mirza.

It has not been a serene week for

the Australian Open, which has

had to cope with the pepper spraying

of Greek fans due to the kind of

heavy-handed policing that

prevails here.

Although the two-session crowds

are excellent, there is also a wider feeling that the Australian Open is

struggling to keep up with the

other three Grand Slams in terms

of facilities.

A feasibility study has been

launched in how to expand the

main Rod Laver Arena, which has

not been upgraded in 20 years.

The

multi-purpose Vodafone Arena is a

very poor secondary main court for

tennis, lacking atmosphere.

For those who could get up early

enough to attend yesterday, Jo-

Wilfried Tsonga put his first round

defeat of Andy Murray further in

perspective when he reached the

last eight with a 6-2, 6-7, 7-6, 6-3 win

over eighth seed Richard Gasquet.

Tsonga now meets Russian

Mikhail Youznhy, who scored a 7-6,

6-3, 6-1 upset against fourth seed

Nikolay Davydenko. The latter will

now have some more time on his

hands to assist the ATP inquiry

into match-fixing.

On the women's side of the draw

Justine Henin and Maria Sharapova

have set up a colossal quarter

final after continuing their progress

without dropping a set.

It is now 33 matches since Henin

suffered a loss — her semi-final

defeat by Marion Bartoli at Wimbledon

more than seven months ago.

That run includes her titanic

three-set win over Sharapova at

last season's tour-ending championships

in Madrid, regarded as

among the best women's matches

of that year.

Play ended yesterday at the comparatively

early hour of 10.24pm

when Paul Henri Mathieu retired in

the second set of his match against

Rafael Nadal.

The paying punters

were disappointed, those working

at the event less so.