Royal visitor
HRH The Princess of Wales was back at the Championships after initially visiting on the first Tuesday of the tournament to see Roger Federer being honoured for his eight men’s singles titles.
Before taking a seat next to Billie Jean King in the Royal Box to watch the ladies’ final, the Princess was welcomed by AELTC Vice-Chair Deborah Jevans and met Philippa George, who performed the coin toss before the final.
Next in line to greet royalty were representatives from the ball boys and girls, Championships colleagues from maintenance and guest services, and key personnel from the British Army, London Ambulance Service, London Fire Brigade and Metropolitan Police.
Kvitova congrats
From one Czech champion to another, the queen of Wimbledon in 2011 and 2014 Petra Kvitova was one of the first to offer words of congratulations - and support - to Marketa Vondrousova and Ons Jabeur on social media. “A huge moment for you and Czech tennis,” the 33-year-old wrote.
Djokovic serving
Often the talk is all about the quality of Novak Djokovic’s return game, but this year his serving has stood out too. International broadcaster Nick Lester, working for the Wimbledon Radio Channel and the BBC at this year’s Championships, discovered a nugget of information that illustrates this brilliantly.
So far the Serb has dropped serve on fewer occasions than during any of his 23 successful Grand Slam campaigns. The world No.2 has lost serve three times during his six victories in SW19 - once against Pedro Cachin in the first round, once against Hubert Hurkacz and once against Andrey Rublev.
Djokovic has twice dropped serve only six times during his 23 major victories - at Wimbledon 2015 and at the Australian Open this season.
Mind the gap
Aside from the many talking points ahead of Sunday’s showdown between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic, the match will also be notable because of the age of both players, the Championships Match Insights Team (an IBM/AELTC partnership) has alerted us.
When the two get the showpiece under way it will feature the second largest age gap between two men’s finalists at Wimbledon in the Open era.
The largest gap came when Jimmy Connors beat Ken Rosewall in 1974 when there were 6,514 days separating the two - nearly 18 years! Next come 36-year-old Djokovic and 20-year-old Alcaraz on Sunday, 5,827 days apart.
Spanish dash
Newly crowned men’s doubles champion Neal Skupski explained in his post-match press that brother and coach Ken had travelled back from a family holiday in Ibiza to be courtside on Saturday to help steer his sibling to victory.
Former pro Ken had booked a family holiday on the ‘White Island’ that clashed with finals weekend in SW19 but decided he couldn’t miss the possibility of his brother teaming up with Dutch partner Wesley Koolhof for a first Grand Slam title as a team.
“He had a 1am flight this morning back from Ibiza that was delayed a couple of hours. Got into Gatwick at 4.30am. Slept in a pod at Gatwick airport. Got the car at 9am here. He was on court with me, borrowing my clothes. He's already left to go back to Ibiza with the family. He probably wants a pay rise!”
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