The great new hope for Scottish tennis, Jacob Fearnley, exceeded expectations on his Centre Court debut by giving seven-times Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic a ‘rough day’ thanks to some useful advice from countryman Andy Murray.
Of all the stories at this year’s championship, none has come out of nowhere quite like the 22-year-old from Edinburgh who, until a month ago, was still a student at the Texas Christian University in Fort Worth and ranked outside the world’s top 500.
Yet here he was, receiving a standing ovation at one of sport’s most famous arenas after pushing a legend over four hard-fought sets.
Cheered on by girlfriend Keegan, his family from north of the border and college friends who had crossed the Atlantic, Fearnley gave a nerveless display of aggressive hitting that put the second seed under real pressure.
Djokovic wore a grey brace on his right knee as a result of a recent operation to repair a torn meniscus but all the chuntering and gestures to his box were due to Fearnley’s performance and difficult windy conditions rather than any physical issues.
Novak Djokovic was given a scare before he managed to navigate through to round three
British wildcard Jacob Fearnley (right) took one set off the Serb and almost forced a decider
Fearnley, whose accent is a pleasing hybrid between Scotch and the deep south of America, acknowledged the match may prove to be a turning point in his career, and was delighted Murray had found the time to proffer some words of wisdom via a mutual friend, coach Mark Hilton.
‘Andy gave Mark some pointers to give to me,’ revealed Fearnley. ‘The stuff he said actually helped a lot, not surprisingly because he’s played Novak so many times!
‘It was really nice of Andy and awesome he was even thinking about the match. It was really cool.
‘I’m really proud of my effort. Obviously, a little bit disappointed to come up with a loss, but I was playing the greatest tennis player of all time on Centre Court so it’s very difficult to be too disappointed.
‘I think proud is how I am feeling right now.’
Fearnley’s ranking after a successful debut campaign at Wimbledon will now be in the low two hundreds, enough to put him into qualifying for the US Open.
He’s already noticed gaining thousands of extra Instagram followers and that number will surely rise even further.
‘Once I got that break in the third set, that was the loudest a crowd has ever been on one of my matches,’ he said. ‘It was super-awesome. I didn’t really know how to act!’
Fearnley has never previously played at a Grand Slam prior to this week at Wimbledon
While Fearnley learns to deal with his new-found popularity, Djokovic accepts big improvements need to be made if he is to emulate last year’s run to the final which he lost to Carlos Alcaraz.
After a single break in each of the opening two sets had appeared to give him a comfortable cushion, Djokovic dropped serve at five-all in the third.
An exchange of volleys you’d normally see in a Doubles match gave Fearnley break point and he was able to capitalise when Djokovic uncharacteristically sprayed the ball wide.
The outsider also had two chances to break at 3-4 in the fourth before Djokovic bashed his way out of trouble. He went on to seal the deal in three hours with Fearnley sadly double-faulting on his own serve at 5-5 to give Djokovic the key break.
Until then, we’d seen the side of grumpy Novak. He grumbled about one spectator and did the ‘Shh.’ gesture to the partisan crowd.
To his credit however, Djokovic was gracious afterwards.
Djokovic was full of praise for his Scottish opponent after a plucky display against the odds
‘I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin in the third and fourth sets,’ admitted the Serbian. ‘You have your rough days and Jacob made me earn my win. Congratulations to him for an amazing effort.
‘The match potentially deserved to go to a fifth set – but I’m very glad it didn’t.
‘They were challenging conditions today. Very, very windy. Not easy to find the right tempo and the right rhythm on the ball.
‘I’m still a little bit rusty on the movement ut I don’t worry about reinjuring my knee.’
Djokovic joined in the applause for Fearnley as the Brit left court.
The youngster will have to get used to a new scrutiny, fielding questions afterwards about the Dog Tag he wears around his neck. ‘I got it from my granddad for my 18th birthday, so I always wear it,’ he explained.
How to deal with questions about different aspects of his life might be the next source of advice from Murray.