Ben Shelton didn’t find out until later that the decision to suspend his second-round match against Rinky Hijikata stemmed from a technical cutoff: the electronic line-calling system was set to shut down within five minutes, including changeovers. Wimbledon’s automated Hawk-Eye Live setup, which replaces human line judges on outside courts, runs on a schedule aligned with natural light. If it had failed mid-point, any ball call would have gone unverified. Shelton shared this only after returning Friday to finish the match, explaining that officials told him continuing wasn’t an option, not because of visibility, but because the tech could stop functioning mid-game. The night before, none of that context had been made public. 

At 9:29 p.m., with Shelton up 5–4 in the third set and one game away from victory, umpire Nacho Forcadell abruptly announced “match suspended” on Court No. 2. Shelton, stunned, walked straight toward the umpire, protesting that he needed just one more game. A supervisor quickly stepped in, placing a hand on Shelton’s back and leading him off court as boos trickled down from the crowd. Hijikata stood still at the baseline, unsure of what had just happened. Commentators on ESPN’s broadcast were equally confused—one calling the move “hard to justify” given the daylight, and another pointing out that both players had earlier asked for play to stop due to slippery conditions but were told to continue

Shelton returned to Court 2 on Friday and wrapped up the match in just 69 seconds—three aces and an unreturned serve, sealing a 6–2, 7–5, 6–4 win. In his press conference, he confirmed the previously undisclosed explanation behind the halt and reframed the controversy around Wimbledon’s technical infrastructure rather than umpire discretion. But even before that, given player confusion, real-time backlash, and a system constraint, tournament director Jamie Baker addressed the decision and explained the officials’ stance. 

“He had match point, didn’t he?” Baker said before play began on Friday, referring to Shelton serving at 5–4 in the third set when Thursday night’s suspension occurred. “I would be pretty unhappy as well. But, yeah, he’s in a good position.” Shelton had won 8 of the last 10 points on serve, and the momentum had clearly shifted after a tense second set. Hijikata had already saved three match points on his serve earlier in the set, but Shelton was heading into the 10th game with full control. But Baker still defended that decision.

We had already extended play as far as we were comfortable with,” he said. “We have been playing really late this week because the weather has been great, the skies have been clear, and last night we pushed it as far as we possibly could.” Official Wimbledon scheduling data confirms that multiple matches during the week—including Taylor Fritz’s opener—were allowed to run deeper into the evening due to ideal conditions. On Thursday, though, officials decided they had reached their limit. The broadcast camera angle during the Shelton-Hijikata match showed lengthening shadows on Court 2, and match logs indicate the stoppage came minutes before the 9:35 p.m. point when Hawk-Eye technology risked failure. While not yet dark, the threshold for light-dependent play was approaching fast.

“If one of the players had said to us that they were uncomfortable kind of 20–25 minutes before, we would have stopped the match,” Baker added. “And ultimately we did as much as we possibly could.” He referenced officials visually checking the surface: “At 5–4, we got to the point where, look, there’s a team of officials looking after the match, and they were just looking at the ground and thinking, look, actually for the pinnacle tennis tournament in the world, we just—we pushed this as far as we were comfortable with. It was almost completely dark. We can’t have players playing in the dark.” Replay footage from the match shows no overhead lighting on Court 2 and no roof, so once sunlight faded, there were no stopgap measures.

Shelton later said he was told the line-calling system would shut down within minutes; Baker confirmed it was “getting close,” but not yet past the limit. “Obviously, it doesn’t work if nobody can call the lines. But we hadn’t reached that threshold… that’s us managing the risk.”

That “rounded decision,” as Baker put it, factored in not only Hawk-Eye’s cutoff but also the tempo of elite tennis under fading visibility. “To be playing when it’s that dark, it was—the officials just didn’t feel comfortable with it,” he said. Moving Shelton’s final game to another court wasn’t viable either.

“Court 1 had been closed for a while,” Baker explained. “So to re-open it for a game or a few minutes tends to not be something that we would do.” Even Centre Court—equipped with lighting and a roof—was off the table. “We’re kind of managing very closely the volume of play on that court,” he said. “Because unlike the other courts, Centre Court as the tournament goes on, the quality of the surface is more important… semifinals, finals—we need it to be exactly where we want it to be.”

And now, as he stands alongside Taylor Fritz– the last two American ATP players left at Wimbledon, you can follow their match-up via minute-to-minute updates via our live blog on the 2025 Wimbledon Championships. But also, Shelton’s frustration wasn’t an isolated incident. His fellow American was also in a similar situation, merely three nights ago in his opening match against Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard.

Shelton and Fritz share the same woes

After a grueling battle on Day One, Fritz couldn’t finish his match because of the strict curfew rule. Taylor staged a fierce comeback from two sets down and 5-1 down in the fourth-set tiebreak to force a deciding fifth. The roof was closed, the crowd was electric, and momentum was on the American’s side. Then, chaos struck. The match was suspended.

Fritz was furious with the decision, arguing, “We have more time than our longest set.” But the officials stuck to their guns. The match was suspended and had to resume the next day—unfinished business left simmering. Still, the No. 4 seed fought his way into Round Two and, on Wednesday, narrowly avoided another suspension that would have cost him a day of rest. He wrapped up his match against Gabriel Diallo to advance to Round Three!

Wimbledon’s grass courts might not be the only challenge players face this year. With Ben set to return tomorrow to face Márton Fucsovics, the question is: will he make it to the fourth round for the second time? What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below!