To the disgust of the North American crowds who wanted to see some tennis this morning, Wimbledon is taking today off. It's "Middle Sunday" you see.
The ‘Middle Sunday’ is the name given to the Sunday that comes during the scheduled fortnight of the Grand Slam when no matches are held on Sunday for the maintenance of the Grass which is a delicate surface as compared to the other Grand Slams as the quality of Grass can deteriorate with the high intensity back-to-back matches being played on it.Owing to this tradition of no play on the ‘Middle Sunday’, there will be no matches held this year as well on the 4th of July, 2021 as it falls on Sunday. Since 1877 when the first Wimbledon was held, only on 4 occasions 1991, 1997, 2004 and 2016, matches were held on Sunday because of rain delaying the original schedule.The Middle Sunday followed by “Manic Monday” when all the 16 fourth round matches of Men’s and Women’s Singles are conducted on the same day. The Wimbledon remains the only Grand Slam to still have this rule as the remaining three Grand Slams no longer follow this.While the Middle Sunday extended the schedule by 1 day, it generated better revenues as an extra day of the tournament was scheduled. However, the Wimbledon 2021 will be the last occasion when this tradition is carried as the All England Lawn Tennis Club announced that come Wimbledon 2022, the practice will be abolished.
Elsewhere, July 4th celebrations in America are proceeding much better than the Dominion Day debacle last week. Boyne City is back on as is Put-On-Bay. July 4th in New York City was supposed to be at least partially active but the fireworks are on hold due to the weather. In Chicago the fireworks are also cancelled, but not related to the weather but the lockdown. In what's the closest analogue to the #CancelCanadaDay nonsense, Miami is cancelling it's fireworks in memory of death only in their case it's actual confirmed deaths which took place this century and should have been preventable. You can look at the list of Massachusetts towns who cancelled it due to lockdowns, and as you might guess locked-down DC (as FakePresident Biden apparently is more scared of groups without F15s and nuclear weapons than he lets on) that July 4th just isn't happening.
