Djokovic Apologizes to Ball Girl at Wimbledon

Sportingly, the Serb's performance against the continuing weakly playing Tsitsipas was extremely one-sided. Djokovic won the second-round match 6:3, 6:4, 6:2 and needed only a little more than two hours for the clear victory. As early as the first set, he had taken control and held his serve throughout.

A clear victory over Tsitsipas

Tsitsipas, who had repeatedly made headlines at Wimbledon in recent years, appeared colorless this time. The Greek committed numerous unforced errors and found hardly any answer against the Serb's varied playing style. Djokovic consistently took the chances that came his way and converted several break points early.

In the third round, an unpleasant opponent now awaits Djokovic: the Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech. Rinderknech had caused a stir at Wimbledon the previous year when he knocked top German player Alexander Zverev out of the tournament already in the first round. Djokovic, however, appeared confident ahead of the task and pointed to his experience on grass.

Other results of the day

In parallel, other matches of the day also made headlines. In the women's draw, the fourth-seeded American Jessica Pegula defeated Spain's Sara Sorribes Tormo 7:6(6), 6:1. Switzerland's Belinda Bencic (SUI-11) also advanced to the next round with a 7:5, 6:0 win over China's Wang Xinyu.

In the men's draw, Hungary's Marton Fucsovics became the positive surprise. He defeated the 16th-seeded American Learner Tien 6:7(6), 6:4, 7:6(4), 6:3 and thus also reached the third round. The third-seeded Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime also prevailed over Dino Prizmic from Croatia 7:6(2), 6:3, 7:5.

In the doubles competition, there were also tight results on the opening day. The Portuguese-Austrian duo Francisco Cabral and Lucas Miedler (POR/AUT-11) defeated Diego Hidalgo from Ecuador and Matej Vocel from the Czech Republic 6:7(4), 7:5, 7:6(2). The match lasted more than two hours and offered spectators high-class doubles tennis.

Following the incident with the ball girl, observers praised the Serb's swift apology. „Es zeigt, dass auch die größten Spieler Fehler einsieht“, commented a tournament spokesperson. Djokovic announced that he would personally present the ball girl with a small gift once the tournament had progressed further.