WIMBLEDON REPORT : Will Hooligans Get Centre Court Seats?

If things live up to the expectations of the British press, today will be the War of Wimbledon. Away from the tennis courts.

For the first time ever, they will play on the middle Sunday of the fortnight, and they were forced to do so because all the rain the first week put the tournament well behind schedule. But the surprising thing was that, even though this has never happened before, it has been talked about for years as a fall-back situation for bad weather. And when it finally came to pass, the All-England Club that runs this tournament apparently didn’t have much in the way of a contingency plan.

Instead of having tickets printed just in case, and some sort of priority list of who should get them--such as all the people who got rained out completely Monday--Wimbledon officials will simply let people in on a first-come, first-serve basis, with seats in the show courts, including Centre Court and Court 1, on an unreserved whoever-gets-there-first basis.

This is, of course, in a country infamous for horrible crushes of fans in unrestricted areas at soccer games. Will tennis fans be more genteel? Probably. Will it come off without lots of hitches? Unlikely.

Heartbreak I: Seventh-seeded Guy Forget of France had quite a struggle against Gilad Bloom of Israel in a match that took portions of two days and a full five sets to complete. The match looked like it could go either way right until the end Saturday, when Bloom, serving at 4-5 of the fifth, lost a 40-15 lead and was broken on a dazzling, running cross-court forehand on Forget’s first opportunity at match point.

Afterward, Bloom sat on his chair at courtside and spent at least 10 minutes trying to break his racket with his foot and knee. But, as he had been against Forget, he was unsuccessful.

Heartbreak II: Doubles star Jim Pugh might win the award for most disappointing Wimbledon. He and partner Rick Leach, seeded third here and among the best teams in the world, lost in the first round Saturday to Goran Ivanisevic and John McEnroe.

But that was nothing compared to Pugh’s singles match Friday.

Pugh won the first two sets against British player Mark Petchey and was serving for the match in the third set. On match point, he hit what appeared to be an ace, and both he and Petchey were so convinced of it that they started toward the net to shake hands. But a linesman called the serve out, Petchey got the point and went on to win that set and the next two.

“Yes, I admit it,” Petchey said. “I thought it was an ace.”

Pugh couldn’t be reached for comment.

Odds and Ends: There is a brewing technical controversy upcoming. Sandon Stolle said that, during his match with John McEnroe, the electronic setup that buzzes when the serve grazes the net on a net cord, was buzzing simply from the whoosh of the ball sailing close to it, but not touching it. . . . In his loss, Pete Sampras got in only 58% of his first serves and served six aces, three fewer than winner Derrick Rostagno, and had 42 services winners, one fewer than Rostagno.