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THE CHAMPIONSHIPS WIMBLEDON

July 8, 2017

Neil Stubley

Wimbledon, London, England

One on one with PA for Pool use.

NEIL STUBLEY: Obviously we're dealing with the extreme heat, which we're not used to every single Championships. So from one Championships to another you will get variations in temperatures which will actually have an effect on how you manage the courts.

We go into The Championships with as healthy of grass as we possibly can so we can endure those extremes. So if we get extreme heat, or last year with the extreme wet, we can deal with it. We have the mechanisms in place that we can add water, we can dry them a little bit more. We can actually be in control of how the plant is surviving.

Q. What kind of difference does the heat make?
NEIL STUBLEY: It's just about making sure that the hardness doesn't go too hard. The plant then gets stressed out too much because you're taking or losing too much moisture in the soil. We can measure that through the hardness readings. If they start going up higher, we know at the end of the evening we can start putting some water on it to bring those numbers back down so they're within range.

Also with the live grass coverage monitoring that we do, we can actually see if the grass starts to wear a little bit quicker than it normally would. We know, again, it's under stress, so we can sort of add that to the equation when we're watering just to make sure we stay within the numbers that are acceptable.

Q. Is there less grass on the courts than there was at this time last year?
NEIL STUBLEY: We've had more matches and more hours played, so that would equate to more wear on the courts.

Now, at the end of Day 4 in 2015, we're probably about where we should have been for the amount of matches we've had for where we are in the tournament.

Q. So are you surprised there have been quite a lot of players complaining about the courts?
NEIL STUBLEY: No, not really. I mean, you know, we set them up to the exact standard that we've done in many previous years. So I'm not quite sure. You know, they have their reasons why they're saying that. More slippery? I don't know if there's been more slips this year or there's just been a couple of high-profile ones. I'm not sure.

Q. What do you say to those players that say it is, they felt it was dangerous?
NEIL STUBLEY: Well, obviously we listen to players, because their feedback is important. But the data shows to us those courts that are in question are within range of the other courts, and they are within the range of previous years.

That's all we can work to, is the data that we feel is best for the health of the courts.

Q. Court 18 obviously was an issue yesterday. What happens when somebody complains about the courts? Somebody obviously goes out and has a check?
NEIL STUBLEY: We go out, we have a look. We looked at the baselines and the areas that they thought there was an issue. We didn't feel there was. The Grand Slam supervisor and Assistant Referee didn't believe that there was either.

When you look at the comparisons of other courts within The Championships, they were in or around the same condition as the other courts.

Q. How much work can you do on Sunday to try and repair some of that?
NEIL STUBLEY: We look at, A, what the weather is for that Sunday, and B, what the weather is going into the following week.

If the temperatures are staying high, it obviously gives us a good opportunity to put a lot of water on, bring those numbers down to the acceptable number that we're looking for.

If we're looking to say that the second week's going to be relatively mild, and temperatures are becoming lower, we can then put less water on it. By the time we measure them on a Monday morning, they're within the range that we'd want to start the second week on any Championships.

Q. But you're confident they'll hold up okay for the rest of the tournament?
NEIL STUBLEY: Absolutely. Absolutely. There's not a doubt in our minds that the courts will not be as good as they need to be for the end of The Championships.

Q. Does it get more difficult when more players play on the baseline instead of at the net? We used to see players going to the net. Now pretty much everyone plays predominantly on the baseline.
NEIL STUBLEY: I think it is a baseline game now. It has been for many years.

As you go through The Championships, the wear on them is over time, so the player then gets used to it every round. By the time you get to the latter stages of the tournament, they're more used to that than they are when they were more lush and green at the start of the tournament, because they just get used to them as they go through.

It's just making sure that you're keeping all the courts consistent. Whichever player gets drawn on whichever court, we still keep it within the range of what's permittable, so they shouldn't actually feel any difference when they're playing.

Q. When would you consider the courts to be dangerous?
NEIL STUBLEY: I don't know. I mean, we've never been in that situation, so I couldn't really answer that.

I mean, because we have daily monitoring, we can keep a very tight rein on everything. It never gets to the point where it's ever going to get away from us because we're on top of it every single day.

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