WIMBLEDON, England — Fiona Wong, a Roger Federer fan from Melbourne, Australia, flew more than 30 hours to see her favorite player at Wimbledon for the first time. She then waited more than 30 hours to get in to see him.
Wong began lining up for tickets at 4 a.m. on Monday, arriving early to ensure that she could buy one of the 500 Centre Court tickets available to those willing to wait overnight in a tent. Her pilgrimage was completed 32 hours after she arrived, when she finally made it to Centre Court to see Federer play.
Wong’s stay was short, however: Federer’s match on Tuesday lasted only 43 minutes because his opponent, Alexandr Dolgopolov, abruptly quit midway through the second set.
“When Dolgopolov started walking toward the net, we were saying, ‘Are you serious?’” Wong said.
Novak Djokovic’s opponent, Martin Klizan, had also retired just 40 minutes into the match before Federer’s. The one-two punch of disappointment left the Centre Court crowd dismayed and players searching for solutions.
“Especially if you walk out on the Centre Court, there is a responsibility,” Djokovic said. “I’m sure they tried their best, but it is what it is.”
The two high-profile withdrawals, known in tennis as retirements, were among seven aborted matches in the first round of the men’s tournament, meaning that more than 10 percent of those matches were not completed. (Steve Darcis retired from his second-round match Thursday, bringing the total to eight.) The abbreviated matches and the void they leave have turned a spotlight on rules governing payment for players who withdraw.
“I feel for the crowd,” Federer said. “They’re there to watch good tennis, proper tennis.”
With time to fill on its broadcast after the marquee matches fizzled, ESPN assembled an all-hands-on-deck panel of 10 commentators to discuss an issue that seemed more urgent than ever.
“Something needs to be done,” Mary Joe Fernández, an analyst, said. “We see this too often, year after year.”
It is a particular problem on the men’s side. Since Wimbledon in 2007, there have been 237 aborted matches in the men’s singles draws at Grand Slam tournaments, accounting for 4.58 percent of matches. There have been only 85 in women’s matches, or 1.64 percent.
After two rounds at Wimbledon, the men have had eight or more retirements for the 11th time at a Grand Slam event in the past decade. The women have never had more than six in that span of 41 tournaments.
One common suggestion from the panel and the players is for the Grand Slam events to adopt a rule recently put in place on the ATP Tour: Players are allowed to withdraw from tournaments twice per season and still keep the first-round prize money they would have earned had they taken the court. A lucky loser from the final round of qualifying would fill the spot in the draw, gaining additional compensation with a win.
Though players rarely admit that they are playing a Grand Slam event solely for the prize money, the financial realities are clear. In recent years, prize money has soared at the majors, particularly for early-round losers. Players rely on those checks to sustain an entire season.
At Wimbledon, first-round losers receive 35,000 pounds (roughly $45,000), but only if they take the court and begin the match. A decade ago, first-round losers walked away with 10,000 pounds.
Only one man, 24th-ranked Pablo Cuevas, withdrew from Wimbledon before the tournament began this year, forgoing his guaranteed prize money but allowing a lucky loser in. That paycheck might not have mattered for Cuevas, who has already earned $892,530 this year.
For others, though, Grand Slam prize money can be needed sustenance. In one prominent example, an injured Petra Martic won just one total game across the three matches she played in the first rounds of the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon in 2014. She earned $104,940 at the three events, which made up 72 percent of her income in singles that season.
“It’s a bit frustrating because for a long time there has been a lot of players asking, wanting more prize money and trying to get more prize money in the early rounds of the Slams,” said the top-ranked Andy Murray, who is on the ATP Player Council.
He added that retirements like the ones on Tuesday were not good for tennis. “Hopefully they will make some changes and avoid more situations like that,” Murray said.
His vexation was echoed by many. There is sympathy for players who become injured midmatch and cannot continue. The only two women to retire from matches at Wimbledon — Anastasia Potapova and Bethanie Mattek-Sands — suffered leg injuries when they slipped and fell.
But for players who take the court knowing they are compromised and do not make an effort to complete the match, there is cynicism and disappointment.
Janko Tipsarevic stayed on the court for only 15 minutes on Tuesday, stopping after losing the first five games. Viktor Troicki lasted two games and two minutes longer, stopping after having lost the first set 6-1 in 17 minutes. Darcis retired after losing the first three games of his second-round match against David Ferrer after receiving medical treatment on court.
Dolgopolov said he had indeed injured his ankle several weeks earlier, but added that he would have finished the match had it been best-of-three sets instead of best-of-five.
“Maybe if you have one or two games to go you just want to finish the match, not retire,” Dolgopolov said. “But when you still have 1 1/2 sets and you’re starting to increase in pain, for sure you think about it.”
That distant finish line in best-of-five matches is probably a dominant reason Grand Slam events have so many more retirements for male players.
“We’re enabling this to continue between the amount of prize money and the length of a match,” said Pam Shriver, an ESPN analyst. “If you’re injured going into a match, there’s no way you can see yourself finishing a best-of-five match.”
Shriver pointed to the first-round match between Agnieszka Radwanska and Jelena Jankovic. After a 65-minute first set that Radwanska won in a tiebreaker, the second set went quickly as Jankovic struggled with an apparent back injury.
“I wouldn’t call that a beautiful scene either, the way Jankovic wasn’t able to give it her best — but she finished the match,” Shriver said. “If that was a three-out-of-five set match, I think she would’ve stopped at 2-0 in the second set.”
Even at prominent joint tournaments when men and women play best-of-three-set matches, women quit less often than men. At tournaments at Cincinnati, Indian Wells, Miami and Rome since 2009, there have been 116 retirements by men and 90 by women.
Mandy Minella, who is 4 1/2 months pregnant, played 53 minutes on Monday, losing her first-round match, 6-1, 6-1.
Radwanska credited female players for their general unwillingness to quit, saying, “The mentality is different.”
“When you know you’re not 100 percent, it’s very hard to win three sets, especially someone who can play really good tennis on the other side of the net, so I guess it’s that,” Radwanska said of male players. “But yes, I think the girls are really, really tough. We still want to fight and just not give up.”
