Play is to take place on Wimbledon's middle Sunday for only the third time in Championship history.

After continuous rain wiped out all of Saturday's action, officials made the decision to play on Sunday.

Briton Tim Henman had been scheduled to face Hicham Arazi in Saturday's third match on Centre Court, but rain ruled out any hope of the players starting their third-round clash.

Henman was involved in an epic encounter with Paul Haarhuis on the last 'People's Sunday' in 1997 - the other was 1991 - beating the Dutchman 14-12 in the deciding set.

The tournament is more than 100 singles matches behind schedule and officials have decided to throw open the doors of the All England Club on Sunday, which is traditionally a rest day.

Wednesday's play was wiped out and, although organisers caught up on much of the backlog with a full day on Friday, they were forced into decisive action by Saturday's downpour.

Play will start at 1100 BST and 28,000 tickets will be on sale on a first come, first served basis.

Goran Ivanisevic clinched the men's singles title on the third Monday three years ago in a carnival atmosphere which made the final one of the greatest-ever sporting spectacles.

And All England Club chief executive Chris Gorringe is expecting a similar success, but remained cautious about the arrangement becoming a permanent fixture in the calendar.

He said: "Let's see how tomorrow goes first. I think it's good for Wimbledon because it so often brings a different type of person to the championships which is good.

"The experiences which we've had in the past have been very, very good, so it should be an interesting day."

He added: "This has been a tough decision to make but everyone with whom we have consulted has been most understanding and co-operative.

"Fortunately, the forecast for Sunday is reasonably encouraging so we should be able to reduce the backlog of matches."

Gates will open at 0900 and organisers are bracing themselves for a long queue as fans scramble for tickets.

Because they are selling unreserved seats, organisers have cut the capacity of Centre Court to 11,000 while 10,000 tickets are being made available for number one court and 7,000 for the rest of the grounds.

Officials say admission will be by cash only and warn that there will be no refunds if play is cancelled because of rain.

Gorringe added: "It's not something we wanted to do but something we have to do in order to finish the championship.

"I know the neighbours are not keen on us playing on the middle Sunday but we hope they will understand the situation. We have consulted the local authorities."

Tournament referee Alan Mills said there were still 400 matches to fit in before the championships end on Sunday week but said the situation was not as dire as in 1997, when only 94 matches were played at this stage.

"We are approximately 120 matches behind," he said.

"We have played 262 and we should have played 376.

"We are ahead of 1991 and 1997 and we are very optimistic that we are going to get the majority of the day (tomorrow) fine."

Saturday's play was entirely washed out, despite the covers coming off on several occasions.

Officials finally threw in the towel shortly after 1830 and abandoned play for the day.