Whether it be those penalty shoot-outs that England football (soccer) fans have come to dread, and cry into their beers over, or those one-set shoot-outs that we occasionally see in tennis – can there be no other sporting purgatory?

As if the prospect of missing out on a place in the Wimbledon 2015 quarterfinal was not enough, the only two ATP singles players yet to complete their fourth round on Tuesday also had the weather to contend with.

Last night, as the clock rolled round around to 9pm, it was clear that there would be no further play, but we did say it would remain to be seen whether the decision not to switch to Centre Court would be a wise one.

After all, it takes time for the roof to be closed and the air conditioning to be set, and the conditions change dramatically. Lines judges need to still be available with a team on rotation, not to mention ball boys and girls.

Regarding the roof, the same was true today as the players walked on just as a small shower started. They walked off again as a Twitter war raged once more about the point of having a roof. The fact was that in the time it would have taken to close the thing, the rain would have stopped and the covers would have been off again.

Let’s get down to the tennis in the fifth set between world No. 1 Novak Djokovic and his South African challenger. Kevin Anderson started pretty much as he had started in the match the day before, with confident ball striking and introducing a pleasing amount of variety.

It was vital that Djokovic would match him toe-to-toe, but as the games crept ever more towards the further reaches of the set, it was going to come down to who blinked first. With the crowd firmly rooting for Anderson, would that become a factor?

Anderson’s chance came with Djokovic serving from behind at 4-5, but a service game held to love nullified any attempts to pull off the shock. Maybe that was weighing on his mind as Anderson lost his serve quite meekly to put Djokovic in the driving seat. The defending champion was not going to require a second invitation as he finally put the match away 6-7(6) 6-7(6) 6-1 6-4 7-5.

For some time now Anderson has been a consistent presence in the tour. With his start to this match, he had high hopes of finally making more of a breakthrough on a surface that can work very well for him.

Anderson said, “Obviously there's a lot of positives to take from that, being in a position two sets to love up. Coming today, I think really gave myself a good shot. I played some good tennis.”

“Tennis is tough like that. Coming into this week, it was definitely my goal to progress further than I have at the Grand Slams. I’ve been in the Round of 16 a few times. I came a lot closer this time than I have in the past. But it just wasn't close enough. “

For the defending champion, you can’t help feeling it was a lucky escape, and one that could have very easily gone the other way.

Djokovic admitted, “With that kind of serve and the aggressive groundstrokes, he's a very, very tough opponent on any surface, especially on grass. All in all, until the last moment, until the last point, I didn't know if I was going to win or not.  I was just trying to be very active and come with the right intensity.  That's all I could influence.  That's all I could focus on. Because he was playing on such a high level, I could just hope that I going to have some opportunities, which I had.”

The men’s quarterfinals will take place on Wednesday.