ATP Tour

From darkness to daylight: How Jodar & Struff navigated Wimbledon’s overnight wait

“Ladies and gentlemen, due to darkness, play is suspended.”

It is a line synonymous with the opening week at Wimbledon. As daylight fades over south west London and shadows stretch across the outside courts, players are often forced into one of tennis’ more unusual situations: stopping in the middle of a battle and returning the next day to finish the job.

Unlike Centre Court and No. 1 Court, where retractable roofs and artificial lighting remove the issue, every other court at the Championships remains at the mercy of natural light. And with packed schedules and lengthy five-set clashes common in the early rounds, evening suspensions are almost inevitable.

That scenario unfolded on Wednesday night shortly after 9 p.m.

On Court 2, former Top-10 star Pablo Carreno Busta held the advantage against 19-year-old Spaniard Rafael Jodar, leading 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, 1-2. Just a few meters away on Court 12, Brandon Nakashima and Jan-Lennard Struff were deep into a marathon of their own, tied at two sets apiece after the American won the fourth set to level at 6-4, 6-7(6), 6-7(5), 7-6(6).

Sixteen hours later, under very different conditions and beneath bright London sunshine, both matches resumed. Jodar completed a comeback victory in five sets, while Struff survived a fifth-set Match Tie-break.

Yet for the players involved, the story does not simply restart when they walk back onto court the next afternoon.

What happens in the hours between suspension and resumption? How do players switch off after spending four hours in the emotional intensity of a match? Do they replay key points in their minds before trying to sleep? How much strategy is discussed with coaches and teams overnight? And in Jodar’s case, having received treatment before play was halted, how valuable was the chance to physically and mentally reset?

“I knew I had to get my body ready for the next day, because obviously I was down,” Jodar said. “But I believed in my chances. I believed that I could, you know, come back and win the fourth set and then the fifth set. That's what happened... I think I did a great job when we stopped the match last night until I stepped on the court this morning.”

The No. 26 player in the PIF ATP Rankings also resisted changing his routine despite the unusual circumstances.

“I just tried to do the same routine. All the routines [I would do as if] I had finished the match,” Jodar said. “I knew I was playing second on today, so get a good warm-up, get to the club as soon as possible to get ready for the match. And I knew it wasn't going to be that long, because we were going to just play two sets.

“But even that is like four-and-a-half, five set, you know that it's always very with a lot of nerves and important moments during those two sets.”

For Struff, the challenge was less about recovery and more about preventing his mind from racing overnight. The German had clawed his way back into the match after almost falling two sets behind and felt there was little reason to obsess over what had happened.

“At least it was close in the fourth set but I didn’t miss many chances, so I didn’t have to think about very much,” Struff told ATPTour.com. “I was nearly two sets to love down and managed to comeback and nothing major happened.

“It would have been different if I had a chance to win it that day but it wasn’t. I came back and it was pretty late so I did my treatment on site. I went back to the house and watched some football. It was pretty easy and went to bed and was able to fall asleep straight away as it was a long match.

“I just tried to get ready for this morning but I tried to relax last night.”

The overnight break also presents another question: how much tactical discussion actually takes place?

“There was not too much to say as he was serving really good and we both could not really see patterns,” Struff said. “We had a feeling he was going more T in the match but then today he was going more wide. So we tried to focus more on my basics and what we can control."

With tricky situations navigated and a more stress-free Thursday night ahead of them, both Jodar and Struff will look to continue their Wimbledon campaigns on Friday when they face Shintaro Mochizuki and Daniil Medvedev, respectively.