Djokovic Is Easier To Love After Wimbledon Heartbreak

It took four hours and 42 minutes of scintillating, riveting, extraordinary tennis, but at the end of the second longest final the All England Club has ever staged, the Centre Court crowd finally got the result they wanted: Novak Djokovic had been defeated.

- JIM WHITE

The player who has not lost on the pristine surface since 2013, has for a decade been the man the doyens of the arena love to hate. Actually, love is too strong a word for it. They just hate him. And as he lost to the magnificent prodigy Carlos Alcaraz their affection was clear: they were all behind the Spaniard. This was as popular a winner as the court has seen since Andy Murray won the title in 2013. And who did he beat then? Oh yes, Novak Djokovic.

But here’s the thing. When Djokovic was interviewed down on the courtside by Annabel Croft after the match was over, his reaction was not that of the pantomime villain he has long since been reckoned. He was dignified, generous, warm in his praise of a player he insisted was the most complete he had ever faced.

There was no self-pity, no complaints about the umpire, no hint of paranoia about how the world had conspired against him. At no point did he threaten to wrap a racket around Croft’s head. Rather, he was the exemplar of sporting good will. This was decency personified.

And the crowd reacted in a way they had never done for any of his victories: they cheered him to the echo. Suddenly, the answer to the question that had been evidently troubling him for the past 15 years became clear. He had never quite understood why he was not popular with the Wimbledon crowd, beyond the few Nole fanatics who seemed to revel in shouting for the man everyone else loathed.