Century in sight

There are so many numbers and statistics about Novak Djokovic’s brilliance bouncing around Wimbledon that if you try to consider them all at once it can feel as though you have just had a dozen tubes of Slazengers tipped over your head. But here’s a significant one: if the Serbian wins his third round match on Centre Court on Saturday, he will become a Wimbledon centurion as that would bring up 100 match victories on the grass.

He completed tennis, people said of Djokovic – as if this sport were a video game – when he won the Olympics for the first time in Paris last year, which had been the only big title missing from his collection. But there are always more levels to play.

This season he keeps on hitting 100. When he won in Geneva on clay in May, that took him to 100 career titles, and at this season’s Roland-Garros he also hit triple figures for match wins. Some other numbers to consider: Djokovic is trying to win an eighth Wimbledon title and a 25th Grand Slam, and this is the 19th time he has reached the last 32 on these lawns, which is a record. On such an occasion, maybe it’s fitting that he plays another Serbian in Miomir Kecmanovic.

Kecmanovic vs Djokovic is scheduled to be the third match on Centre Court

Navarro on tour

When Tatler magazine wrote the other day that Emma Navarro was behaving in London “like any other American tourist”, she would have taken it as a compliment. Travelling the world, the 2024 quarter-finalist tries to avoid being in “a road bubble” of seeing only the courts, her room and the airport and discovering nothing else of the cities she is in, and that’s why she borrowed a bike and cycled down the King’s Road this summer.

Tourist bit over, now for the serious business of a meeting with Barbora Krejcikova, the ladies’ singles defending champion, when they will be playing for a place in the last 16.

Krejcikova vs Navarro is scheduled to be the second match on No.1 Court

Holmgren's escape acts

A sport popularised on vicars’ lawns in Victorian England is now giving modern day athletes the kind of adrenaline rushes you might otherwise get only from sky diving, rollercoasters or making films with Tom Cruise. Just consider the summer that August Holmgren has been having in south-west London.

Getting to know: August Holmgren

After coming from a set and a break down in his first two appearances in Qualifying last week, the Dane saved three match points in his final round at Roehampton. Since switching to the main draw and the All England Club, Holmgren has been living just as dangerously, surviving three match points against Tomas Machac of the Czech Republic in the second round. What might happen next, when he plays Australian Alex de Minaur? 

At his first Wimbledon, Holmgren has been showing a taste for the theatrical. When you hear he has a degree in theatre arts and performance studies from the University of San Diego, it all makes sense.

De Minaur vs Holmgren is scheduled to be the second match on No.2 Court 

Teenage kicks

Maria Sharapova was the last teenager to win the Venus Rosewater Dish. That was in 2004, when Sharapova was 17 years old and Mirra Andreeva hadn’t been born. Andreeva, who is 18, is the youngest player left in the ladies’ singles and she will want to do something about that Sharapova stat.

If she beats Hailey Baptiste of the United States she will go through to the fourth round, which would equal her longest campaign on the grass, after coming through Qualifying and putting a run together a couple of years ago.

Andreeva vs Baptiste is scheduled to be the first match on No.1 Court

Sinner's dozen

Twelve games. That’s all Jannik Sinner has lost so far at The Championships across his first two matches in the gentlemen’s singles. Maybe some had been wondering whether the Italian’s tennis on the grass would be degraded by negative thoughts about what happened on Parisian clay last month, when he held three championship points before losing the Roland-Garros final to Carlos Alcaraz.

Sinner’s tennis so far would strongly suggest he’s totally fine as, in a very carb-heavy opening few days, he's already had one bagel set (6-0) as well as a couple of breadstick sets (6-1). Next up for the world No.1 is Spain’s Pedro Martinez.

Sinner vs Martinez is scheduled to be the first match on Centre Court

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