Wimbledon chief Ritchie defends roof closure

ALL England Club chief executive Ian Ritchie has defended himself from Andy Murray's criticism of Wimbledon's roof.

FEELING HOT: Andy Murray lashed out at the humidity caused by the roof being closed

The British number one questioned the time he had to prepare for his fourth round match with Stanislas Wawrinka and claimed he struggled to adapt to playing indoors.

"The weather forecast was a 70 percent chance of a thundery shower but we were also concerned the match would not be finished in normal light," said Ritchie.

"Andy Jarrett is the referee and it was his decision to start the match under the roof.

"There was a communication between the locker room and the referees' office to say the likelihood was the match would be played under the roof. We then confirmed this when the match before ended.

"If we'd left the roof open and then had to close it, there would have been comments about that. We wanted consistency for the entire match and it was the same for both players.

"The alternative was Andy coming back and playing on Wednesday and he would not have wanted to do that."

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