BBC pulling plug on 'Top Gear' format for highlights show Wimbledon 2Day

The live studio audience will be axed as of Monday, with the programme moved to a studio in Centre Court rather than the 'Gatsby Club', a corporate hospitality pavilion where fans stood around behind the presenters.

Ahead of the 2015 tournament the BBC decided to ditch John Inverdale's 'Today at Wimbledon' highlights show, which focused on highlights of the tennis with snippets of expert analysis.

Instead, what they served up was Clare Balding in front of a live audience presenting a 'Top Gear' style discussion show, with light-hearted features interspersed with occasional fragments of tennis - just 20 minutes of the hour-long programme was used for match highlights in the opening days of the tournament.

After the initial outcry, that was increased slightly on Thursday and Friday night last week, with just over half an hour of actual tennis on the Friday, and given the strength of the reaction and the bigger matches that are to come it seems likely that will increase again from Monday. Effectively, the entire format of the show will have been changed in the space of a week.

The BBC attempted to suggest that the return to a more traditional format and location had been planned: "The new location gives an excellent backdrop of the heart of Wimbledon, as the Championships build to their climax," the BBC source told the Daily Mirror. "We were keen to move back closer to the centre of the event for its final stages.”

Fans appeared to hate the new Wimbledon 2Day format, and even regular guest pundit John McEnroe called it "bizarre" while actually on air.

Indeed, at one point last week he was asked by Balding if he'd ever had a beard. "Why the hell are you asking me about beards?" came the devastatingly brilliant response.

Media commentators were hugely scathing: "Like some nightmarish cross between Top Gear and Play School, guests must chat to Clare while standing around one of those high top tables that are so popular in wine bars,” wrote the Daily Mail's Jan Moir.

"Precious little court action from the day’s matches is shown. Instead of crisp analysis and lots of tennis, there are gimmicky items...

"Tennis fans who have been working all day, which means the vast majority of us, want to come home and watch a plain and simple, comprehensive round-up of the day’s play. We want as many on-court highlights as possible and straight-forward scrutiny and expert opinion. What we don’t want is Clare reading out inane tweets or talking over match play while rock’n’roll musk is played over her words.”

The Guardian's Stuart Heritage made a similar point: "Everyone hates it – and, let’s be clear, they really do hate it. They hate it because it can’t decide whether it wants to be Top Gear or The One Show, when actually it should be a sober review of matches that people missed because they were working."

At least the BBC has been listening, and from the sounds of things the issues will be fixed as of Monday. The name Wimbledon 2Day remains, but all it would take is a bout of laryngitis for Clare Balding to force the BBC to recall John Inverdale and the transformation back into "Today at Wimbledon" will be complete.