Other stories from Wimbledon in brief

Security alert

London brought a little bit of Belfast to Wimbledon yesterday morning. Overnight, security erected large concrete blocks in front of all the main gates leading into the All England Club and constructed a concrete chicane on Maryatt Road, one of the main routes in the one-way system around Wimbledon.

The heightened security alert in the wake of the attacks in London and Glasgow ensured that sniffer dogs were off the leash around the concourses inside the grounds, while the drone of a police helicopter in the sky all added up to the sort of experience you would have had walking down the Falls Road not too many years ago.

Forget the image

Much has been made of the pampered lifestyle of British tennis players, and that was further highlighted yesterday when a comparison was made between them, some of whom are above 500 in the rankings, and a Russian junior called Vladimir Ignatic, who happened to win the under-18 competition at Roland Garros this year.

Ignatic's dad is a builder (not quite the same as an Irish builder) and his mother is a part-time cleaner. They fund his time in Florida, where he is in a tennis academy. Apart from the rigorous training schedule, living away from home he also does his own cooking, washing and cleaning.

The National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, London, has a cafeteria that would not be out of place in a five-star hotel. The players don't have to cook, or clean, and everything is free.

Tongue in cheek

Dog days like these give you time to leaf through the tennis Tour Guide book, where there are occasional nuggets of information. Sometimes you just have to assume that players put stuff in as a joke. So it appears on page 151, among numerous facts about the career and personal life of top Japanese player Akiko Morigami (cue the jokes she folds easily and she's paper weight). The 27-year-old from Tokyo, who relaxes by watching films with friends, lists Pearl Harbour as her favourite.

Rain has a cost

Each day at Wimbledon wiped out by rain costs the All England club around £1 million. Because the championships operate a system that fully refunds money on days where an hour or less tennis is played, and offers a half refund on days limited to between one and two hours play, the last seven days have been quite rough on them. On Saturday defending champion Amelie Mauresmo required 57 minutes to defeat Italian Mara Santangelo in her third round match, while Maria Sharapova took one hour and 15 minutes to beat Japan's Ai Sugiama.

Family business

Why not keep it in the family. Those who take more than one newspaper each morning may have noticed a proliferation of tennis columns written by the Murray clan. The injured, Andy Murray, filled a page in the Sun. His mother, Judy Murray, was across the top of the Daily Telegraph and his doubles playing brother, Jamie, had a column in the Guardian.

That's quite a few pounds going to the most famous Scottish tennis family. Andy is reportedly contracted to write 12 columns for the Sun each year for which he is paid £100,000.

Their football columnists get significantly more.