A total of 36,630 fans attended on Friday, when rain "delayed the start of play by two hours and also stopped matches from being played on the outside courts in the evening"Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty Images
Attendance at the first week of Wimbledon was down by 3.7% from last year "as rain interrupted play on several days" at the event. The total Week One attendance was 282,955, "10,726 less than a year ago." Friday’s attendance was "the lowest for a first Friday, excluding the pandemic-restricted 2021 tournament, since 1998." A total of 36,630 fans attended on Friday, when rain "delayed the start of play by two hours and also stopped matches from being played on the outside courts in the evening." The comparable figure last year was 42,279 (
AP, 7/8).
Court No. 1 was "noticeably not at capacity" to start the tournament's second week, "with with large sections of empty green seats clearly visible during the first game of the day." Courts being "slow to fill up" is not uncommon particularly around lunch time," but there "remained rows of empty seats for the match" with blocked of "between 10 and 15 empty seats" remaining midway through the second set. Rows of empty seats were also "noticeable for for
Emma Raducanu’s fourth-round defeat by
Lulu Sun on Centre Court" (
London TELEGRAPH, 7/8).
