The temperatures have been soaring sky-high in London over the past few days. An extreme heatwave has gripped much of Western Europe this week, and the heat is only expected to get even more intense from here. Though the hot summer has become quite an issue, barely any preparations have been made to improve the situation for players at Wimbledon. Turns out that there is even a lack of air-conditioning for players at the Grand Slam.

Madison Keys has now called out the tournament organizers and has asked them to provide the players with better facilities at the SW19. She has stressed that the air-conditioning needs to be way better amid such a scorching heatwave.

“I just feel like every year during Wimbledon there’s a heat wave, and everyone tells me that they ‘don’t need air conditioning,'” she told Bounces. “We, in fact, need air conditioning that week!”

Keys is saying this from experience, as she has participated in 12 Wimbledon campaigns so far. She is well aware of the facilities that are provided to the players at the Grand Slam. The American also knows well about the scorching heat in England, as she has been competing at the Eastbourne Open for the past few days.

The 31-year-old has reached the final of the WTA 250 event after securing wins against the likes of Talia Gibson, Jessica Bouzas Maneiro, McCartney Kessler, and Petra Marcinko. She is set to face Tatjana Maria in the final on Saturday.

Coming back, though the SW19’s main draw is yet to begin, the intense heat has already started causing chaos in the qualifying matches. The Lawn Tennis Association’s (LTA) National Tennis Center in Roehampton reached 33°C (91.4°F) on Wednesday, leading the electronic line-calling system to overheat and shut down mid-match.

This brought qualifying matches to a sudden and unexpected halt at around 12:15 PM. While the play soon resumed after the technicians restored power, the overheating of the technology highlighted just how extreme the heat was. One can only imagine what the players will have to go through later on as the tournament progresses.

Notably, Wimbledon does have a rule in place if the heat gets extreme during matches. The rule allows players to take 10-minute breaks between the second and third set for best-of-three set matches or between the third and fourth set for best-of-five set matches when the heat index is at or above 30.1 degrees Celsius.

However, a similar weather policy didn’t quite help the players at the French Open last month. Many of them couldn’t bear playing under the extremely high temperatures in Paris, and a number of them even had to withdraw from their respective matches due to the grueling conditions.

Many players couldn’t handle the heat at the French Open

It was the first week of the tournament when the hot temperatures caused the most chaos. They soared as high as 33°C regularly and led to several mid-match retirements on both the ATP and WTA sides.

The first day of the main draw saw Canada’s Gabriel Diallo retire from his match against James Duckworth shortly after taking a medical timeout due to a lower-back issue. He had later cited weather as a major reason behind his withdrawal.

Cameron Norrie retired from a match for only the second time in his career, and the weather was a big reason behind this. The Brit was trailing 6-7, 0-2 against Daniel Vallejo when he decided to call it quits.

Moyuka Uchijima retired from her first-round clash against Claire Liu after being severely affected by the heat. She didn’t want to continue playing in the intense heat and withdrew from the match at 3-6, 6-0, 4-1.

Additionally, some players also encountered stomach aches due to the heat at the French Open. One of them was Arthur Gea, who had to take a medical timeout for an emergency bathroom break during his first-round clash against Karen Khachanov.

Francisco Comesana was also forced to take multiple bathroom breaks during his clash against Matteo Berrettini. He, too, found it very tough to handle the scorching heat in Paris.

It remains to be seen if players will have to face similar health issues due to the heat at the upcoming Wimbledon Championships.