BBC commentator stunned during Novak Djokovic’s Wimbledon match | Tennis | Sport

BBC commentators have seen it all at Wimbledon: ejections, medical emergencies in the crowd and even streakers on court. With that in mind, it takes a lot to shock whoever is behind the microphone at SW19.

But an incident during Novak Djokovic‘s quarter-final clash with Felix Auger-Aliassime did exactly that on Tuesday. Djokovic, seeded seventh for the tournament, knew that he had only two matches to go before he could contest the Wimbledon final as he attempts to win his 25th Grand Slam.

If there was any debate about the greatest tennis player of all time, clinching a Wimbledon title at the age of 39 would go some way to tilting the odds in his favour. Others might be tempted to stake a claim for Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal’s heroics at SW19.

The Big Three remain very popular with tennis fans, despite Federer and Nadal retiring from the game over the past four years. But the rise of AI means that they can be there in spirit, even if they are not physically there.

One fan leaned into that idea when they displayed a picture of Federer, Djokovic and Nadal at a gentleman’s club – and such a sight even led BBC One commentator Nick Mullins to be lost for words, saying: “What’s going on here?!”

While that provided a brief distraction, the action on court soon recaptured his attention. Djokovic later had a medical timeout in the first set and yet still managed to clinch it through a close tiebreaker which finished 12-10 in his favour. But he soon started to lose his composure after a number of interruptions during the quarter-final tie.

Djokovic had been in a fiery mood all afternoon and evening on Centre Court. After witnessing Auger-Aliassime bring the score back to 1-1 in sets, the officials decided to close the roof to avoid causing disruption during the third set.

However, the Serbian was not amused in the slightest by that plan as he felt it was unnecessarily early. Djokovic pointed out that they didn’t close the roof until 8.30pm in a different match – some 50 minutes later than when they made the call to close the roof this time.

“The other day you didn’t want to close it until 8.30. Now you want to close it. You don’t want to get to 8.30? It’s 7.40 now. We can play a whole another set outdoors. We’re an outdoor tournament.”

He continued: “With Jannik, I don’t care what happens in his matches. I’m talking about our match right now. You remember the first round, you didn’t close it until like 8.20. Now you want to close it at 7.40. Where’s the consistency? You’re so proud of your rules and you’re not sticking to any kind of rules. You have no idea what the rule is.”

That feeling of annoyance was then passed onto his box, with Djokovic often seeing ranting and raving in their direction. The seven-time winner struggled to keep his emotions in check and cut a frustrated figure, which former British No. 1 Tim Henman felt was hampering his game.

“There is sort of this running dialogue between Novak Djokovic and his team. I don’t think it is doing his concentration any good. It isn’t what we normally see on the biggest stage from him,” Henman said.

Henman’s observation appeared to be the nail on the head as Djokovic – leading 7-6(10), 3-6, 6-3 – lost the fourth-set tiebreak 7-4 to force a final set to Auger-Aliassime, who at 25 is 14 years his junior.

However, he stayed on course as the pair played out yet another tiebreak in the final set, and Djokovic dominated to take it 10-4. He will face Sinner in the semi-finals, hoping to seal his place in a 11th final at SW19 on Sunday. The other place will be filled by the winners of the quarter-finals between Taylor Fritz vs Alexander Zverev and Flavio Cobolli vs Arthur Fery.