Wimbledon's New Retractable Roof
For years since the original Centre Court was built in the 1920s, Wimbledon had a small roof overhanging the top tier of seats. During the renovation of Centre Court, which included the addition of 1,200 seats (increasing the capacity to 15,000), there was no roof over Centre Court. 2009 marks the introduction of the new two-piece translucent retractable roof over Centre Court. In fact, Wimbledon held a special Centre Court celebration in May to test the new roof with a full stadium. The roof, which is made of 5,200 meters
of a waterproof “accordion-like” folding fabric, allows sunlight to pass through and there are also lights that can be used when the roof is closed. After the rain begins, it takes about ten minutes for the steel trusses in the north and south sections of the roof to stretch the fabric roof closed while the grounds crews still scurry around and cover the grass courts with the green tarps. Once the roof is closed, the air circulation system still needs to pump fresh air, i.e. approximately eight liters of air per second per person, to ensure that the grass court doesn’t become too slick and slippery. All in all, it takes about thirty minutes after play has been stopped for rain before the match can resume under the new roof. The introduction of the Centre Court roof has raised the question of whether there might be night sessions at Wimbledon in the future as there are at the Australian Open and U.S. Open, but there are no plans for that at present. However, although there will not be additional matches scheduled on Centre Court during the day session, there still may be play late into the night because once the roof is closed during a match, it will remain closed until the match concludes. Wimbledon now joins the Australian Open as the second Grand Slam to have a retractable stadium court roof. The French Open has recently announced plans for a roof over its main stadium. Will the U.S. Open (soon) follow?!
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