Wimbledon 2017: Kristina Mladenovic, Alison Riske cite 'hole in the court' for wanting to quit

London: Kristina Mladenovic slammed the condition of Wimbledon’s legendary Court 18 on Thursday, saying the grass was dangerously sparse, a hole appeared, and both she and her opponent wanted to quit. The French 12 seed was playing Alison Riske in a second round encounter on Court 18, the smallest of the five show courts with 782 seats, which the American won 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. [caption id=“attachment_3785149” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Kristina Mladenovic complains to officials about the state of the court during her match against Alison Riske of the United States. AP[/caption] The court is famous as it is where John Isner and Nicolas Mahut played the longest-ever match in tennis history, a contest lasting 11 hours and five minutes over three days of play at Wimbledon 2010. But Mladenovic said both she and Riske wanted to halt proceedings early on in their encounter. “It’s quite unique with your opponent, after two games, you both agree on stopping playing in a Slam,” the 24-year-old said. “You asking the referee to tell you what’s the rule if both players don’t want to keep on playing. And the answer is that they just can’t do anything, unfortunately, and you have to keep on playing. “The colour of the court, the fact that there’s no more grass, the fact that the baseline where we are running, it’s very slippery. There’s no grass. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s not even clay. “There was a huge hole on the sides where the referee came to actually take pictures of it. So it was not even flat. “I realised that because at the warm-up I twisted my ankle a little bit. “You have to run light and be careful, not to push or press too much which is strange to play on. “I’m just very happy and blessed that I didn’t injure myself that much.” World No 46 Riske plays 24-seeded compatriot Coco Vandeweghe on Saturday for a place in the last 16.