Peeking into the England Lawn Tennis Club has a prize.
The chronicler enjoys a beautiful walk from Southfields tube station to Wimbledon, a quarter of an hour contemplating the pretty terraced houses, and what green meadows, and what longing for those days, perhaps not so far away, when our meadows too they were green.
The gentlemen dress up in shirts and jackets and the ladies wear flowery dresses and, on occasions, hats. Anglican priests station themselves along the road, recruiting for their cause, and taxi drivers offer shared rides:
“£2.50 per person,” they scribble on their signs, hand-lettering.
Novak Djokovic plays on Center Court, and the man is upset, as if he didn’t want to be there. In fact, he’s a day late.
He should have dispatched his round of 16 match against Hubert Hurkacz the day before, on Sunday afternoon, but the schedule had been stretching, and the night had spread over London and Djokovic still had a set pending: he won by a double 7- 6 (he had won both tie breaks thanks to a double 8-6) when the organization had interrupted the game.
Finish on Monday.
And on Monday, Djokovic is upset: he has lost a day of rest.
It only remained for Beatriz Haddad Maia to injure her hip in her clash against Elena Rybakina, the Russian without a flag who defends last year’s title, for the rentrée to catch Djokovic even more wrong: the Serb was playing ludo with his people in the players room when called to order.
To play tennis.
Hubert Hurkacz (26 years old) is not a tennis supergiant.
It is the 18th in the world.
But his record shows a notable notch: in the 2021 quarterfinals, he had fired the great Roger Federer with a donut.
A donut to the king of Wimbledon, in his last match in London, in his last set.
If you have come this far, you will remember the sentence that opened the chronicle: visiting the England Lawn Tennis Club has a prize.
Sometimes, the chronicler sits in the media restaurant and watches Jim Courier or Àlex Corretja, who pass by. On this occasion, who passes is Ivan Ljubicic.
Ljubicic is distinguished from the league. He is around 1.90 and has a shaved head at zero. He was a magnificent tennis player, third in the world in 2006, and later, already retired, he coached Roger Federer.
Ljubicic directed that autumnal Federer on the day of his farewell to Wimbledon. The day of the Hurkacz donut.
Now, the good Ljubicic gets off a pizza while fiddling with his three mobiles, and out of the corner of his eye he contemplates Djokovic’s drift against Hurkacz, the Serbian who is seeking his eighth title in London (as many as Federer looks), his 24th title of the Grand Slam (as many as Margaret Court), but who suffers because Hurkacz stands up to him.
Hurkacz manages very well on the London grass and hits 33 aces and further annoys Djokovic, who loses in the third set and is forced to spend even more time on the court.
-It seems that Djokovic is suffering, but he will end up solving this -Ljubicic confesses to the chronicler while manipulating the pizza with both hands.
Ljubicic is right.
Twenty minutes later, in the fourth set, Djokovic accelerates and breaks Hurkacz’s serve, we’ll never really know how, and that’s where the Pole’s resistance runs out, which remains half-hearted as he watches how Djokovic projects towards his 32nd consecutive victory at Wimbledon, towards the quarterfinals against Andrey Rublev, the Russian who, the day before, had done his homework against Alexander Bublik.
-I don’t remember the last time I felt so miserable to the rest. It hasn’t been a game in which I have enjoyed much, the truth -Djokovic confesses as soon as they hand him the microphone.
You will have felt miserable.
But he has resolved like the greats.
