A FURIOUS Wimbledon star had to be held back from the umpire after his match was controversially suspended just as he was ready to serve for the match.
Ben Shelton’s second-round clash with Rinky Hijikata was allowed to carry on until nearly 9.30pm in the hope of getting it finished.
Shelton, 22, led by two sets and got an early break in the third.
But after seeing three match points come and go at 5-3 on the Hijikata serve, the American was ready for a change of ends then hoped to serve for a straight-sets victory.
However, at 9.29pm, the umpire announced play was called off for bad light as darkness had, in fairness, descended on SW19 in conditions reminiscent of Rafael Nadal’s 2008 final win.
That sparked groans and a smattering of boos from ticket holders on No2 Court.
Aussie Hijikata grabbed his bags and headed off court – but Shelton was fuming.
The No10 seed, watched by his footballer girlfriend Trinity Rodman, immediately pleaded for the match to be continued for one more game to see if he could finish the job.
But his protests fell on deaf ears as he wagged and pointed an angry finger towards the umpire and needed to be restrained by a Wimbledon chief as his temper understandably boiled over.
The courtside microphones struggled to pick up exactly what Shelton said.
But it was clear he was making a case to play out one more game to see if he could complete the match – especially because he had not dropped serve in the entire match.
Instead, he will now have to come back on Friday for, quite possibly, just four more points.
Tennis fans flooded social media with reaction to the shocking drama – although it could have easily been avoided by taking the players off either after the second set or early in the third.
One said: “Unbelievable. Maybe 2 minutes later, it was finished… A true joke.”
Another wrote: “Wimbledon should be ashamed.”
A third added: “This tournament has become the worst major in all of professional sports. Embarrassing.”
A fourth commented: “The warm up will take longer than what’s left of match to complete, only positive bit is that it’s a quick practice for Shelton but otherwise it’s a shocker.”
A fifth replied: “They couldn’t have let them play one more game and leave it at 5-5 if Shelton couldn’t serve it out or be done if he did? Ridiculous.”
And a final user typed: “Making them warm up for a singular game tomorrow is insane.”
In theory, Wimbledon could have closed either the Centre Court or No1 Court roof and put the lights on to finish the match off on Thursday night.
Instead, they confirmed the match would resume at 6-2 7-5 5-4 not before 12.30pm on No2 Court on Friday.
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