Can someone hold up the start of a match?

I've recently played a multiplayer match on napoleon where something odd happened. I set my army up and selected the player ready icon, the count down began but when it got to zero the match didn't begin straight away.

At first I thought there might have been a connection problem but then I noticed the dust on the battle map was still swirling, normally when I or an opponent drops the screen freezes and I was also able to send messages instantly on the chat screen. (he didn't respond although I have played him before and I know he speaks english.)

This lasted for about 7 or 8 minutes with the counter on zero before the match finally started. The battle map was tarbruk messa which is a rush map so it got me thinking that maybe my opponent was holding the game up somehow. Is this possible or am I just being paranoid as I've played over 300 games and I've never seen that before.

cheers

It's happened to me once, after the match finally started he said "sorry it took so long but I wasn't ready". Incredibly confusing as the counter had reached zero 5 minutes ago...