Jarrett: We think of the players

Wimbledon referee Andrew Jarrett has hit back at criticism of this year's scheduling.

Second seed Rafael Nadal complained that tournament officials "don't think very much about the players" after finally completing his third-round match on Wednesday, five days after it was meant to start.

"We are keen to be fair to all the players - but the one thing we can't control is the weather," said Jarrett. "I understand his frustration and we share his frustration."

He added: "He is in the bottom half of the singles which was scheduled for Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

"We didn't play on Saturday but that unfortunately is the way it has worked out. It put us one day behind effectively on Saturday evening."

Jarrett also defended the decision not to play on Sunday, saying: "You can only ever make decisions based on facts, and the facts are that on Saturday morning, when that decision needed to be taken, we were exactly where we wanted to be, singles-wise.

"We couldn't have played another singles further ahead than we were at the time.

"We were also faced with a weather forecast that was less than promising for Sunday, there was no justification for it.

"What has hurt us is having a subsequent bad Monday and Tuesday, that's given us the backlog.

"Then you can apply hindsight which certainly didn't apply on the Saturday."