Ben Shelton claimed that Wimbledon didn’t want to “see anything else” from him after abruptly ending his second-round match with Rinky Hijikata. Their Court 2 contest was halted just before the American had a chance to serve out for the victory, as he led his Aussie opponent 6-2 7-5 5-4 at the time.
But Shelton was left enraged because at the end of the second set, he voiced his concerns to the court supervisor about potentially stopping play at that point due to poor light. BBC commentators speculated that Shelton was concerned about how slippery the grass could become and the 22-year-old clearly felt that it was unfair to carry on if they were not going to be allowed to complete the set.
The No. 10 seed could not convert match points on Hijikata’s serve and then exactly what Shelton feared would happen, did. The umpire announced that play was being suspended and the two players would have to return the following day to complete the set.
An understandably irate Shelton had to be held back by court supervisor Ali Nili when the decision was made as he continued to complain to the umpire while the crowd launched into a tirade of boos.
Later that night, Shelton took to social media to vent as he wrote: “They ain’t wanna see anything else from me tonight but I’ll see yall tomorrow.”
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The match was suspended at 9.29pm, a day after Alejandro Davidovich Fokina’s match against Botic van de Zandschulp was stopped at 9.15pm in a similarly controversial manner.
At the end of the second set, Shelton could be heard asking the umpire for clarity over whether that match was stopped because of a lack of light or the conditions on court.
He asked chair umpire Nacho Forcadell: “If there’s no chance of finishing the third set, it’s slick in the back there. If there’s no chance of finishing the third set without it being too slippery? Yesterday it was 9.15pm, huh? So we have 35 minutes?”
Then, when Hijikata was taking a bathroom break in the third set, Shelton asked again: “When they called the matches at 9.15 yesterday was that because it was too dark or too slick? Like was that a hard stop? So it was because of light, and this court has the least light?”
Hijikata also did not appear keen on starting the third set as he complained to the umpire when Forcadell came down from his seat to inspect the grass.
But the pair are forced to return to Court 2 once again on Friday in the second match of the day, after Naomi Osaka takes on Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.