Wimbledon 2024 Novak Djokovic blasts ‘disrespect from Centre Court fans
Perhaps perhaps the Centre Court crowd was hailing Novak Djokovic’s adversary by calling his name.
Jul 08, 2024 09:34 PM
Jul 8, 2024, 05:34 PM ET
WIMBLEDON, England — Perhaps those Centre Court spectators were saluting Novak Djokovic‘s opponent by chanting his name. Perhaps they were shouting at Djokovic and trying to frighten him. the 24 times Grand Slam champion was sure that it was the latterand let the world know that he wasn’t happy with it.
Djokovic easily defeated 15th seeded Holger Rune 6-3 7-6, 6-4, 6-2 in under two hours on Monday night. He went on to make it into the Wimbledon quarterfinals. He also ensured he got a message to the fans who he believed were against the Serbian.
The Rune’s fans at different events often stretch out his name and say “Ruuuuuune!” This sounds like “Boooooo!” — and it occurred again on Monday.
In his interview after the match, Djokovic spoke briefly about the match, but then turned to the topic of people who were in the spectators.
“To every fan who are respectful and who have were in the stadium tonight, thank You very deeply from my heart. I appreciate it. To all the people who have decided to be disrespectful of the player in this instance myself, I wish you an amazing night. A great night. Great night. Very good night.” the singer declared, stretching”good” and “o’s. “good” so that they sounded as “boo.”
The interviewer attempted try to stop Djokovic from thinking that someone tried to smear him.
“They were. They were. They were. I’m not sure how they can accept it. I’m sure they were cheering for Rune. However, that’s not an excuse to also cheer,” Djokovic said. “Listen I’ve been playing on the tour for over 20 years. Trust me, I’ve got all the techniques. I’m familiar with the way it works. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s OK. I’m focusing on the respectable people, who are respectful who paid tickets to see tonight’s game — and are passionate about tennis. Love tennis. We appreciate the players as well as the work that they invest in this sport.”
In his press conference afterwards, Djokovic was asked whether you think it is appropriate that the All England Club should do some thing to reduce the raucous fans’ behavior.
“Look I’m not sure what Wimbledon is going to accomplish about this. It’s true that in the exact moment when it occurs, the crowd has paid for their tickets. They are entitled to be present and to choose how they wish to cheer. This is a choice they can make and how they behave, or the way they support the player is entirely their decision,” Djokovic responded. “Yes you can argue that whether a chair umpire, or someone else could intervene at certain times to calm them down, however, there’s nothing that you could do. You’re not going to kick away the entire part of the stadium or crowd for a player who is acting out or displaying disregard for.”
Rune — who was off to an unfun start to the game, dropping all of the 12 first pointsand didn’t do much about the whole thing.
“If you don’t know what was happening, probably it sounded like ‘boo,'” he stated. “But if we all know what happened, it was my name.”
Rune said he could imagine that fans’ chants of his name might seem like boos at Djokovic due to the time it’s been since the exact incident happened during their last match, but he did not consider it to have was “a massive part in the match.”
“He was just better than me today,” Rune stated. “Whether the crowd was this or that, I think it was great support for both players, to be honest.”
As the match came to an end, Djokovic gestured as if the violin was his and perhaps mockingly said that he felt sorry for everyone who was in the arena with whom was saddened by his win and reaching the quarterfinals of the All England Club for the 15th time.
He has been crowned champion of Wimbledon seven times. In addition, He was runner-up in the final to Carlos Alcaraz in the year before.
“I played in much more hostile environments, trust me,” Djokovic declared. “You guys can’t touch me.”
Information taken from The Associated Press was used in this report.