Only an umbrella salesman could have really enjoyed the last couple of weeks. Any time a bit of quality tennis threatened to break out, a shower beat it to the chase. It was all reminiscent of a versatile old joke, the one where someone went to watch the boxing and some rugby broke out.

At Wimbledon, some observers swear that some tennis even broke out every now and then, between all the dreary rain-gazing.

And while the rain-breaks were irritating enough in themselves, their affect on the players proved even more annoying. Emblematic of it all was Rafael Nadal's third round tie with Roger Soderling. They warmed-up on Saturday, started playing on Monday, continued on Tuesday and finished things off on Wednesday. Cricket internationals have been run-off more swiftly. In all, play was halted and restarted seven times and by the time Nadal finally won through to round four, both players were as cranky as hell and moaned at each other like little girls through the media.

Not that they were the only ones to moan. Novak Djokovic (below) just couldn't fathom, like a bunch of other players, why there was no play on the middle Sunday. It did seem like a decision grounded in penny pinching rather than common sense, particularly when you consider that entry to the ground for spectators on that day would have been at a reduced rate, while all onsite employees would have been paid double their normal rate for the inconvenience of working on the Lord's day.

While you can argue the toss over that decision, there's no quibbling with the fact that we've witnessed some poor tennis due to the staccato nature of the tournament. Players have found it difficult to get any kind of rhythm going, a point best summed up by Jelena Jankovic, who fell to a shock fourth round defeat to Marion Bartoli in the fourth round of the women's singles.

"When you play from 11 in the morning till six in the evening it's not something you want to do, " said the defeated number three seed on Tuesday afternoon. "At the end of the day it's not tennis which decides, it's whoever is stronger mentally and physically. There is a lot of stress with going on and off court. In these circumstances anything can happen."

While that might explain the progression of outsiders like Bartoli, Nicole Vaidisova, Marcos Baghdatis and Tomas Berdych through to the latter stages of the men's and women's singles, it also goes some way to explaining why the game's leading lights, the likes of Roger Federer, Nadal, and Venus Williams, have performed little better than adequately up until the tournament's final weekend.

On Friday, for instance, the wind billowing around both Centre and No 1 Court's was hugely problematic for the players on duty, and while on television it may have appeared a minor issue, it did force the likes of Federer and Nadal into major readjustments in their respective games. While the pair are undeniably the most stylish players on view in the men's singles, they've both had to put the adventurous sides of their respective games to one side simply in order to survive.

While everyone's been fed up with the rain and the way it has diluted the quality of the tournament, Mike Morrissey, the assistant referee at Wimbledon, has manfully attempted to put a positive spin on everything. It has been Morrissey's job over the past fortnight to convey over the PA system when play is likely to restart.

For the first ten days, he was continually promising that more play was just around the corner, but on Thursday it appeared that he didn't care anymore.

"The Met office have informed us that the rain is likely to persist for the foreseeable future, " were his pessimistic words, with not an ounce of hope offered that things were likely to clear up. His previously indomitable spirit, it seemed, had been broken.

At least, though, he lasted a good five days longer than the rest of us.