No night shift for Wimbledon

Even when the new Centre Court roof comes into use in 2009 there will be no designated night sessions of the kind that have seen the world's top players performing in the middle of the night here.

The issue of ridiculously late, if money-spinning, separate evening matches has again been brought to the fore by the record-breaking epic between Lleyton Hewitt and Marcos Baghdatis which finished at 4.35am on Sunday morning.

Scroll down for more

Clock that: Tired Hewitt takes a breather in the final set

That followed the 2.05am finish of the third round clash between Andy Roddick and Philip Kohlschreiber the night before.

Long evenings mean that Wimbledon regularly hosts matches until 9pm.

In the event of rain delays, they will be able to go on even later to finish a contest under the roof being constructed.

However, as an All England Club spokesman confirmed last night, there are no plans to stage separately ticketed night games which, with tennis being an open-ended sport, can go so deep into the night.

Hewitt's five-set triumph over Baghdatis was a memorable epic that had nearly 10,000 spectators staying to the end, confirming this city's reputation as the most sports-mad on the planet.

Yet with Melbourne Park fast turning into a giant bed and breakfast haunt, organisers were yesterday forced to defend themselves, not for the first time this fortnight.

The most specific charge was of failing to communicate properly with Hewitt and Baghdatis, who were initially told they would be the first match of the evening session once Roger Federer's five-set test by Janko Tipsarevic was finished.

But Venus Williams and India's Sania Mirza declined to shift their match to the secondary court.

So the men were forced to wait until 11.40pm, after Williams' straight sets victory, to start the most hyped match of the event so far.

The great wonder is how, in a country that is a world capital of petty regulations, the health and safety brigade did not put a stop to it.

Hewitt was said to have got to bed at 8am and his supporters were anxious about how he would recover for his fourth round tie against Novak Djokovic due today.

Tournament director Craig Tiley was forced to admit that Hewitt and Baghdatis had been led to believe they would be going on after Federer, prior to the refusals of Williams and Mirza.

It has not been a serene week for the Australian Open, which has had to cope with the pepper spraying of Greek fans due to the kind of heavy-handed policing that prevails here.

Although the two-session crowds are excellent, there is also a wider feeling that the Australian Open is struggling to keep up with the other three Grand Slams in terms of facilities.

A feasibility study has been launched in how to expand the main Rod Laver Arena, which has not been upgraded in 20 years.

The multi-purpose Vodafone Arena is a very poor secondary main court for tennis, lacking atmosphere.

For those who could get up early enough to attend yesterday, Jo- Wilfried Tsonga put his first round defeat of Andy Murray further in perspective when he reached the last eight with a 6-2, 6-7, 7-6, 6-3 win over eighth seed Richard Gasquet.

Tsonga now meets Russian Mikhail Youznhy, who scored a 7-6, 6-3, 6-1 upset against fourth seed Nikolay Davydenko. The latter will now have some more time on his hands to assist the ATP inquiry into match-fixing.

On the women's side of the draw Justine Henin and Maria Sharapova have set up a colossal quarter final after continuing their progress without dropping a set.

It is now 33 matches since Henin suffered a loss — her semi-final defeat by Marion Bartoli at Wimbledon more than seven months ago.

That run includes her titanic three-set win over Sharapova at last season's tour-ending championships in Madrid, regarded as among the best women's matches of that year.

Play ended yesterday at the comparatively early hour of 10.24pm when Paul Henri Mathieu retired in the second set of his match against Rafael Nadal.

The paying punters were disappointed, those working at the event less so.