Sunlight More of an Issue in London Than in Paris

Andy Murray's loss to Mardy Fish in the third round of the AEGON Championships at Queen's Club in London was more drawn out than an average loss, as play was halted at 3-3 in the final set after Fish complained the light was too low play in, and walked off the court.

Murray went on to lose the match when it resumed the next day, and afterward railed against the current rules regarding stopping play due to darkness in his post-match press conference, his anger with the way he lost far overshadowing the loss itself.   Murray cited his dimly-lit loss in Paris to Tomas Berdych, as well as infamous match between Fabio Fognini and Gael Monfils in the second round of this year's French Open, which dissolved into rancor and chaos as play appeared to be on the verge of stopping several times before eventually stopping just several minutes short of 10 PM.

However controversial they were at the time, the issues with light at Roland Garros will pale in comparison to the problems that will plague Wimbledon.

Play regularly doesn't begin on the show courts at Wimbledon until 1:00 PM, whereas at Roland Garros it begins at 11:00 AM.  Add to this the generalization that London skies are normally cloudier than those in Paris, and the greater number of play halting rain stoppages on grass courts, and you have a mess.

And then there's the even bigger factor in the difference between London and Paris which everyone seems to be ignoring: they're in two different time zones. 

Even though they're only 200 miles apart, when it's 9:30 in London, it's 10:30 in Paris.  The day lasts a little longer in the summers in London because its a bit further north, but well short of a full hour longer.

What's to blame for this? The ridiculous Central European Time Zone, which stretches all the way from the Atlantic coast of Spain in the West to Macedonia and Poland in the East. 

Time zones were originally created as a way to regulate long distance train travel, but in modern times their purposes are far more economic.  Strictly on the basis of longitude, France and the United Kingdom should be in the same time zone, but the French government opted to sync with its major trading partners in Germany, Italy, and the rest of central Europe.  Spain wanted to stay on the same time as France, making the already oversized Central European Time Zone even more enormous. 

That tangent aside, back to tennis.  How does this problem get fixed?

The solution the tradition-oriented Brits (including Murray himself) are touting is the use of light meters, like the ones photographers use.  They are already used in cricket (see how much fun the two chaps to the right seem to be having with theirs?), and certainly seem to be a more objective way of assessing sufficient light to continue play. 

The ITF (or ATP or WTA) would establish a minimum amount of light necessary for play, and once the levels of brightness dipped below that limit, play would be halted.  It would be an easy enough rule to institute without causing much of any disruption to the way the game is played, and it would certainly stop a lot of the gamesmanship and bickering that happens when matches are still going past dusk.

But there's an even better solution than just measuring light--making light.

Artificial lights are used at just about every tournament in North America, Australia, and Asia, so there's no reason for them not to be fully implemented in European tennis as well.  Lighting units can be rented for only the times the tournament is in session, and do not pose a major expense.  They allow matches to be completed in a timely manner, and save fans from having to miss witnessing the end of a match they're engrossed in just because they don't have tickets for the next session as well. 

Lights could easily and inexpensively be brought to every court at a tournament, not just the show courts, so as not to disadvantage less marquee players (as well as fans with grounds passes). 

Those who say that bringing lights into Wimbledon would destroy the tournament's tradition have little ground to stand on.  The tournament has already installed massive video screens into its show courts for Hawkeye, and already has a roof (with built in indoor lighting) that was used last year to continue a match well past 10 PM.  The match was a thrilling five-set victory for Andy Murray, and the British press and fans loved every second of it.

Stateside, Chicago's Wrigley Field didn't install lights until 1988, and that wasn't until they were pressured by league officials motivated by television revenues they were losing by not staging night games there.  Under the lights tennis in primetime would undoubtedly do big television numbers as well, going into primetime in Europe and closer to primetime in the United States.

This one simple move could do a tremendous amount for both the fairness and popularity of the sport.  Once the lightbulb goes off over the LTA executives' heads that they should put lightbulbs over everybody's heads, the future of tennis will look a whole lot brighter.