Wimbledon duo Katie Boulter and Grigor Dimitrov have both admitted they had to hold themselves back from getting too involved in the aftermath of the Just Stop Oil protests. Wimbledon buffed up security for this year’s Championships in a bid to ward off any chance of their tournament being disrupted by protestors.
But Just Stop Oil were able to infiltrate Wimbledon’s increased measures on two separate occasions. Both incidents happened on Court 18, where fans are able to stand up close to the court.
The first saw two people break onto the court during Dimitrov’s match against Sho Shimabukuro, who chucked orange confetti everywhere after smuggling it in through a Wimbledon jigsaw puzzle. And one other Just Stop Oil protestor was able to do the exact same thing in the next game between Boulter and Daria Saville.
The three protestors have since been arrested with Wimbledon now likely to further increase security measures to avoid something similar happening again. The players were left helpless during either incident but clearly wanted to get involved.
Jonny Bairstow went viral last week for physically removing a protestor from the Ashes incident at Lord’s. And Dimitrov has admitted that he had similar thoughts when his match was disrupted but opted against getting involved.
“My first reaction was initially to go also, but then I also realised that’s not my place to do that,” he said. “I think it just depends on the person. Whatever instinct you have. It’s very difficult to tell you, honestly, on that end.
“But it’s just, I mean, again, even if you’re aware, you just don’t know. Things happen unexpectedly, and as I said, sometimes you’re just at the wrong place at the wrong time. When that happens… Yeah.”
Boulter was also unsure on how to initially react when her match was disrupted during the first-set tiebreak. “There were a lot of emotions I think because I didn’t really know what to do in that situation. It’s not something I’ve been through before,” the British No 1 said.
“Naturally my first instinct would have been to try and help get everything off the court. At the same time I have to remind myself to focus, to keep in the moment and keep trying to keep my eye on the ball and not drop it.” She added: “I would say that I think we all sympathise with what they’re going through completely. At the same time I don’t know if it’s the right place or time.
“When I think back to people who have sat here, as we just talked about, 30 hours trying to watch tennis, it’s really tough on them. I sympathize with all of them, every person that’s going through it.”
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