Rafael Nadal became the latest player to comment on the scheduling of courts at Wimbledon as the Spaniard noted that “almost always the same players” are playing on Centre Court at the All England Club.

Nadal lost in the fourth round to Gilles Muller in five sets on Court No. 1 on Monday and later stated he would love to come back to the tournament next year for another attempt to capture a third Wimbledon crown, but not without mentioning he was keen to play on Centre Court.

“I never said I not going to come back. Yeah, I want to come back because I want to play more times in the Centre Court,” said the Mallorcan 15-time Grand Slam champion.

Nadal played two of his four rounds this past week on Centre Court, and two on Court No. 1.

Two-time champion and home favourite Andy Murray has played all four of his rounds on Centre, so has seven-time winner Roger Federer, while three-time champion Novak Djokovic twice on Court No. 1 and twice on Centre (his fourth round was scheduled on Court No. 1 but was postponed to Tuesday and will be played on Centre Court).

Nadal added in the Spanish part of his press conference: “I like playing more on Centre Court. Someone has to play on Centre, and it’s almost always the same players here. This is the reality. Here, there are many of us who have won a lot in our careers, who have a lot of important history behind us.

“A tournament that wants to be as traditional and as special as Wimbledon has to distribute the number of matches scheduled on Centre Court and that not always the same people play there, and when there are doubts, the others are sent to other courts.”

With all 16 fourth round matches from the men’s and women’s draws scheduled on ‘Manic Monday’, scheduling was naturally a tricky task for Wimbledon.

But throughout the tournament, not just on Monday, men were given twice as many matches on Centre Court than the women, which led Angelique Kerber and Jelena Ostapenko to voice their concerns over the issue.

Defending champion Andy Murray admits the scheduling isn’t fair for the ladies and that having four matches on Centre Court instead of three could solve the problem.

“I don’t think anyone’s suggesting it is fair. I’m not suggesting that it is,” said Murray on Monday after his straight-sets win over Benoit Paire on Centre Court.

“I do also think that is the case – I could be wrong – at the Aussie Open. I think on the centre court it’s three women’s matches and two men’s matches every day. Is that right? I think so, just because of timing, as well.

“It would be much better if there was four matches. You know, you have the two men’s and the two women’s, obviously.

“But I’m not the one that decides the schedule. When you start at 1:00, and you can’t play under the lights, you have a very limited amount of time. Like the other day when I played Fognini (in the third round), we had hardly any light left. The matches were not particularly long that day, and we almost ran out of time, you know.

“So maybe starting the matches a little bit sooner, a little bit earlier in the day, and splitting them between the men and women. It’s not the hardest thing to do.”