A Splendid Day At Wimbledon On “Second Monday”, 8 July 2024

Rune & Djokovic Squaring Up Ahead of Centre Court Battle

I scored us a pair of centre court tickets for the second Monday of Wimbledon this year. Not bad, I hear you cry. I thought it was a smart move this year. I always thought that “Manic Monday” was better observed from the comfort of a living room and a gadget that enables switching between channels. But the craziness of “Manic Monday” has, in theory, been dissipated by the use of “Middle Sunday” for half of the draw.

Theory and practice failed to collide this year, with so much rain through Week One and Middle Sunday, that our Monday, which was blessed with good weather until early evening, was pretty manic.

Still, we were scheduled to see the following matches on Centre Court…

• Elena Rybakina v Anna Kalinskaya
• Taylor Fritz v Alexander Zverev
• Novak Djokovic v Holger Rune

…and there was loads to see on outer courts.

We arrived a little late to get in to one of the main outer courts for the first match of the day, but after wandering around for a short while, I worked out that we’d get on to Court 18 to see at least part of the conclusion of a rain-affected Ladies Doubles including several players we like: Katerina Siniakova & Taylor Townsend v Leylah Fernandez & Ena Shibahara.

We bailed out of Court 18 before the finish, keen to see the first match on Centre Court.

After the first set, I went out to stretch my legs, only to discover, on my return after the first three games of the second set, that Kalinskaya had retired. Still, my leg-stretching had enabled me to spec out the neighbouring outer courts, where some of the youngster action was now underway.

We watched Flora Johnson overcome Alena Kovackova before returning for the start of the Fritz v Zverev match – a rare example of a match between two players with Z in their surname.

Having consumed my hot smoked salmon bagel during the first match, perhaps my defences were down. Or perhaps it was the relentless big serves and not much else at the start of that match. Anyway, I must confess that Janie caught me napping during the first set and kindly prevented what might have been a notorious snore-gate incident.

I did the leg stretch thing again at the start of the second set and returned for the end of that set, which also went Zverev’s way. I suggested to Janie that the rest of the match was only going to be interesting if Fritz revived and that would take quite some time. Janie agreed, so we decided to wander around some more and take in the outer courts.

Janie’s eye’s fell on some mixed doubles: Jan Zielinski & Su-Wei Hsieh v Hugo Nys & Demi Schuurs.

It really is a privilege to be able to watch these fantastic players at such close quarters on those outer courts.

Then we focussed on some more youngsters for a while: Henry Bernet & Flynn Thomas v Mark Ceban & Charlie Swaine.

Then to Court 14, where I spotted that an interesting-looking mixed doubles was about to start: Maximo Gonzalez & Ulrikke Eikeri v Jean-Julien Rojer & Bethanie Mattek-Sands…

…but not before Janie snapped some hydrangeas that took her fancy:

All the while I was keeping an eye on the score from Centre Court. Once it became clear that the fourth set between Fritz and Zverev was heading for a tie-break, I suggested that we return to see the end of that match, one way or another.

That we did and it was a well worthwhile switch. That tie break was excellent and Fritz went up through the gears in the final set.

We stuck around for the first set of Rune v Djokovic (see headline picture), but by then we had seen plenty and thought that people queuing for returns were more deserving than us.

Besides, it had started raining and it looked as thought he rain would only get worse. We quite fancied getting home before the proper heavy stuff.

The young lad from Guest Services admired my poncho, describing it as “stunning”. Excellent taste, some youngsters these days, excellent taste and good choice of advective. He even sounded as though he meant it.

Here is a link to the order of play with results for the whole day.

We didn’t go too mad with the camera at this one – we were a bit photo-ed out from Eastbourne. But if you want to see all 60 pictures, here they are on Flickrt:

We always have a a great day at Wimbledon. This day, despite its frenetic nature, was no exception.