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		</div><p>Wimbledon chief Richard Lewis insists placing more men&#8217;s matches on the tournament&#8217;s show courts is not favoritism but simply reflects what spectators want to see.</p>
<p>With all the tournament&#8217;s fourth-round matches taking place on Monday, Centre Court and Court One were both stacked with male players as has been customary at SW19 so far.</p>
<p>In the opening seven days of play, 14 matches on Centre Court have been from the men&#8217;s singles draw while only eight have come from the women&#8217;s.</p>
<p>The bias on Court One, Wimbledon&#8217;s second show court, is less pronounced, with 12 male ties to 10 female so far, but Monday&#8217;s scheduling there again came out two-to-one for the men.</p>
<p>Andy Murray, Roger Federer and Venus Williams were handed Centre Court for the last 16 while Johanna Konta, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic were put on Court One.</p>
<p>World number one Angelique Kerber&#8217;s battle with French Open champion Garbine Muguruza was among the female matches to be overlooked, instead relegated to Court Two.</p>
<p><i>&#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t say it&#8217;s favoritism. I would say it&#8217;s taking the marquee matches,&#8221;</i> All England Club chief executive Lewis said. <i>&#8220;It&#8217;s not about male or female, in the end it&#8217;s about which matches you feel the public and broadcasters want to see.&#8221;</i></p>
<p>Asked if female players could only gain greater popularity with more exposure, Lewis pointed to the last three women&#8217;s rounds, which will have days without men&#8217;s singles matches on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.</p>
<p>The other three grand slam tournaments routinely put four, or even five, daily matches on their show courts but Lewis said Wimbledon crowds would struggle to make an earlier start.</p>
<p><i>&#8220;We view these things from time to time. It doesn&#8217;t work for us,&#8221;</i> Lewis said. <i>&#8220;Whether it will work in the future at any stage I&#8217;m not sure. The start time of 1pm, already you see fans struggling to get into Court One and Centre and that&#8217;s not just corporate hospitality.</p>
<p>&#8220;People travel from long and large distances and they want to use off-peak fares. Getting to the stadiums is a challenge so three matches on Centre and One works for us. It&#8217;s a tried and tested formula.&#8221;</i></p>
<p>Lewis also offered a staunch defence of the condition of the grass courts at Wimbledon after several players criticised the surface as not up to scratch.</p>
<p><i>&#8220;We&#8217;re 100% confident in the courts and all the metrics and measurements taken show the courts are as good as ever,&#8221;</i> Lewis said.</p>
<p><i>&#8220;I had a look at Centre yesterday and it was as good as I&#8217;ve ever seen it to be honest &#8211; a lot of grass and it looked fantastic.</p>
<p>&#8220;The reports we&#8217;re getting back from the groundstaff and independent measurements we&#8217;ve taken are that they&#8217;re coming through as good as they have ever been.&#8221;</i></p>
<p>The courts were given a day off on middle Sunday, when no matches took place, but Lewis said &#8220;nothing out of the ordinary&#8221; had been done to improve their condition.</p>
<p><i>&#8220;We respect the players&#8217; views. In the heat of battle and the tournament they will have their views,&#8221;</i> Lewis added.</p>
<p><i>&#8220;But we can only go by what we go by every year which is the groundstaff. They have won awards over the years, there&#8217;s a reason for that and we&#8217;re very confident about what they do and how the courts are shaping up.&#8221;</i></p>
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