Wimbledon fans have made their feelings clear after seeing the order of play for day three of The Championships.
Centre Court ticket holders will want to trade in their seats for the second show court after seeing reigning champion Carlos Alcaraz and home favourite Emma Raducanu scheduled on Court 1.
They both graced Centre on day one of the tournament along with Coco Gauff, who will also be demoted to Court 1 on Wednesday.
No. 5 seed Daniil Medvedev will open Centre Court on day three, taking on Alexandre Muller of France. Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka’s contest with 19th seed Emma Navarro follows. And an all-Italian battle between world No. 1 Jannik Sinner and former finalist Matteo Berrettini rounds out the day.
Over on Court 1, world No. 2 Gauff will face Anca Todoni in the first match before three-time Major winner Alcaraz continues his title defence against Aleksandar Vukic. Raducanu will then take on Elise Mertens.
And fans have been left confused after seeing the three Grand Slam champions shunted to the second show court. “Why is Alcaraz on court 1,” @Marsher00 wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter).
@svsarjun chimed in: “surely they must’ve made a mistake right, why would both Raducanu and Alcaraz be in court 1 instead of central?” @RMarsonet agreed, replying to a screenshot of the schedule saying: “Im genuinely surprised that they removed Alcaraz n Raducanu from CC.”
Medvedev’s Centre Court billing also caught fans off guard after the world No. 5 spoke about his perfect record on Court 1 after getting through the first round on Monday. “strange scheduling, maybe they’re trying to give everyone a chance to get used to the centre court conditions since meddy said they’re different from court 1,” @JANNlKS wrote. And @daniil_bear93 joked: “They’re setting up daniil by putting him on centre court.”
Former world No. 1 Medvedev defeated Aleksandar Kovacevic on Court 1 and said: “I still never lost on No.1 Court so hopefully I can play a lot more matches on this court. I said last year before the semi-final that, unfortunately, I have to go to Centre Court and I actually lost.
“This year I got lucky, I managed to practise on Centre before the tournament so maybe it can give me some edge for the future, but for the moment I want to play on Court No. 1 and try to win.”
Raducanu has the opposite problem. The British No. 3 explained how special it was to play on Centre Court after beating lucky loser Renata Zarazua on Monday but she will now have to step out onto Court 1. “I think the feeling of walking onto Centre Court especially, it’s powerful,” the 2021 US Open winner explained.
“It’s like that moment where you say bye to your team and everyone and you go and you’re on your own. You feel like you’re completely alone. I think it’s something that you need to take in your stride. I don’t know one person who is probably playing their first round feeling unbelievable about themselves, not nervous at all.”
