The last time I saw Centre Court at Wimbledon was 1997. It was a bit smaller, had no roof, and had been eclipsed by the smart new circular Number One Court by BDP.

This was part of their judicious masterplan for the tennis campus which sorted out the whole previously confused landscape of the place and created the legendary Henman Hill. This time, however, was different. I had come to see Centre Court’s new roof in action. And so had Boris Becker. 

Now the architects in question are HOK Sport, recently renamed Populous, with engineer John Westmuckett of Edge Structures (who had previously been with BDP on the Number One court project) and contractors Galliford Try. The all-important material for the concertina roof structure was Gore’s Tenara architectural fabric, a sandwich of PTFE yarn and fluoropolymer. It’s tough, flexible, highly translucent – that means that 40 per cent of sunlight passes through it – and immune to ultraviolet light. And I was with a party of luminaries from the Gore company’s plants in America and Germany to see the roof in action for the first time. 

Centre Court was packed to its new high-tech rafters for the event – a series of short exhibition matches involving Tim Henman, Kim Clijsters, and husband-and-wife pair Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf. But before all that, we were treated to the sight of the new roof closing. As it was a windy, showery day, this seemed only prudent. Opera moppet Kathryn Jenkins sang while the roof glided shut in a curious start-stop operation that took around nine minutes. It looks as if it could trundle shut a lot faster than that, but like the ultimate car sunroof, it has pause moments, presumably to ensure people and objects don’t get tangled up in it. 

There was a huge round of applause when the two halves of the roof met in the middle. Then there was a pause of around half an hour (more singing, by Faryl Smith and an operatic boy band called Blake) while the air handling plant made sure that the atmosphere over the court was the right temperature and humidity. Only then could the match commence. 

I stayed for the mixed doubles, won on a tie-break by Henman and Clijsters. Henman reported that the court surface was just fine. From the audience point of view, what had been a cold, draughty arena became a warm, still one. That translucent roof, augmented by daylight-effect artificial lighting, provides excellent visibility – designed as much for high-definition TV transmissions as for the live audience and players. In quiet moments you can hear a faint background rumbling of the air handling, but it’s by no means intrusive. 

Facts: the moving roof weighs over 1,000 tonnes, covers 5,200 square metres, and is 16 metres above the sacred turf. Each of the 10 white-painted steel trusses spans 77m. It can be deployed in wind speeds up to 43 mph. Though it will only be used when strictly necessary – the whole apparatus has been designed to maintain the same daylight and ventilation characteristics when open as the arena enjoyed when it was roofless. So if we have a sunny fortnight for Wimbledon, it won’t be closed at all. 

By the way, back in 1922 architect Captain Stanley Peach built Centre Court in nine months flat for £140,000. And that – with a bit of upwards extension – is what the new roof covers.

We published the first full description of Wimbledon’s new roof. Click here to read the article.