Djokovic wins after farcical rain delay scenes

Novak Djokovic dried the court with his towel and urged the crowd to “blow” in a farcical rain delay as his Wimbledon title defence began with a win.

But after the first set there was no play for 80 minutes, despite the closed roof, with Djokovic dabbing the grass before ground staff used leaf blowers.

“Every time I come out I normally have racquets, not towels – it was fun to do something different,” Djokovic said.

“It was a little bit [of] a strange feeling but hopefully you guys liked it.

“It was definitely frustrating for all the crowd waiting for us to come out on court. We both wanted to play but the conditions were not great and still slippery.

“Once the roof was open it was a different story and after five or 10 minutes we were able to play.”

Djokovic, aiming to secure his eighth Wimbledon title and match Roger Federer’s record for a male player, will now play Australia’s Jordan Thompson, ranked 70th in the world, following his five-set win over American Brandon Nakashima, 55th in the world.

 

Amusing scenes as Djokovic tries to dry the court

Djokovic, who has not lost on Centre Court since being beaten by Andy Murray in the 2013 final, was a break up in the first set, but complained the surface was getting slippery with drops of rain falling.

He wrapped up the set just before a shower at 14:20 BST, with the roof then fully closed 15 minutes later.

But in that time enough water had got on to the court before the covers came on to cause a lengthy delay.

With the covers off and the roof still closed, the players inspected the surface at 14:55, but were not happy with it and the crowd were told by the umpire that “the court is taking longer than expected to dry”.

There followed some amusing scenes when Djokovic appeared with a towel, urged the 15,000-strong crowd to “blow” at the same time to dry the court, with him then wiping the grass himself.

After that, three members of ground staff, each armed with a leaf blower, also tried to dry the surface, while the fans began to get restless with a half-hearted slow hand clap and then a Mexican wave.

With the leaf blowers and the towel not doing enough, the roof was reopened at 15:40 in an attempt to dry the grass naturally with the rain having stopped.

It did the job and play resumed just before 15:50 with Djokovic able to take control with two breaks in the second set against his opponent, who battled hard but was outclassed.

If he keeps winning, Djokovic will not have to play a top-30-ranked opponent until the fourth round at the earliest.

Returning Rublev safely through

Russia’s seventh seed Andrey Rublev is a potential opponent for Djokovic in the quarter-finals and he began his campaign with a 6-3 7-5 6-4 success over Australia’s Max Purcell.

Rublev, unable to play at Wimbledon in 2022 because of the ban handed out to Russian and Belarusian players after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was only in trouble in the second set at 5-2 down before he won five games in a row in a 6-3 7-5 6-4 victory.

Norwegian fourth seed Casper Ruud, who lost to Djokovic in the recent French Open final, was tested by Laurent Lokoli of France before eventually going through in four sets on Court One.

Elsewhere, there were successes for 14th seed Lorenzo Musetti and 17th seed Hubert Hurkacz against Juan Pablo Varillas of Peru and Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain respectively.