From beating the members of his team to ludo, to accessing the third round above the Australian Jordan Thompson. This is how the afternoon passed Novak Djokovicwho defeated the ‘aussie’ (6-3, 7-6 (4) and 7-5) in his second match in Wimbledon and he greases the machinery for an eighth Wimbledon from which only five games separate him.
Despite the rain and cloudy day in London, Djokovic isolated himself from the problems surrounding the tournament, with a more than heavy program, playing ludo with his team on the terrace for players. As Djokovic jumped from box to box, David Beckham was overwhelmed with photo requests and although the Serbian lived abstracted from all this, he did get up to chat kindly with the former English footballer. Not so with Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry, also invited to the terrace and who, upon their arrival, caught the Belgrade player much more absorbed in the game, along with his physio, his coach, Goran Ivanisevic, and his friend, Carlos Gomez.
It didn’t look like the Serbian was going to have to draw his racket a few minutes later, when Iga Swiatek finished his job in front of Sara Sorribes. He was in a relaxed attitude, out of all tension and calm. Very calm. As is logical when you have gone more than 2,000 days without losing at Wimbledon and when all your last 40 matches on Center Court have been counted as victories.
Thompson, a competent player on grass and who was a bit of a headache with his more than seventy raises to the net, was a good test for the Serbian, who after a comfortable first set continued with his positive inertia in the ‘tie breaks’ and thus took the second set. Djokovic has won the last eight tiebreakers he has played, between the Rome Masters 1,000, Roland Garros and Wimbledon. His last defeat in a ‘tie break’ dates from the minor tournament in Banja Luka, where he played half throttle.
The Australian, now without his characteristic mustache that he decided to shave this week, put up a good battle, with his 21 direct aces and making Djokovic very uncomfortable, who saw few loopholes to hurt him.
The seven-time champion had to take the match to the margins to make the Australian’s racket tremble, who finally fainted in a boat that soon stayed in the net and delivered another victory to Djokovic, the man who wins everything at Wimbledon .
With or without a roof, he continues in a tournament that he hopes to win eight times and in which he has already passed the first two fences. The next one will be named after the Argentine Tomás Martín Etcheverry or the Swiss Stan Wawrinka. A new challenge or the man who took two Grand Slams from him. It will be decided tomorrow, since the match was canceled due to rain. EFE