Frustrated fans were left wondering quite what was the point of Wimbledon’s £80m ($101m) Centre Court roof on Monday when Novak Djokovic’s match was delayed for over an hour as ball boys took to using leaf blowers to dry the grass.

Defending champion Djokovic had just taken the first set 6-3 against Argentina’s Pedro Cachin when light rain forced the players off and led to the roof being slid into place — a process that takes 10 minutes.

Leaf blowers were eventually used to dry the turf before the roof was reopened and the match resumed in the open air after a 70-minute delay.

“It normally takes 10 to 20 minutes when the roof is closed for the air conditioning to do its job and grass to dry,” Djokovic said. “We saw that players came back after 15 minutes to Court One and resumed play. But we couldn’t. Too many places on the court were too slippery.”

“For more than an hour the situation was not changing at all.”

Reuters