Novak Djokovic needed three hours and 17 minutes to get past China's Yibing Wu on the opening day of Wimbledon, winning 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 in what he called a "really challenging" first-round match.
According to Yahoo Sports, Djokovic had not played a competitive match since his third-round exit at the French Open to Joao Fonseca. He came into Wimbledon sounding optimistic about his preparation as he chases a record 25th grand slam title and eighth Wimbledon crown. Monday did not go smoothly.
Wu, ranked 102nd in the world, pushed the 24-time major champion harder than expected. A former US Open junior champion who is rebuilding his career after two injury-interrupted seasons, the 26-year-old produced flat, aggressive baseline tennis that generated loud cries of "Wuuuu" from the Centre Court crowd. The noise resembled booing but was in fact recognition of how close Wu was taking the match.
The fourth set was the most dramatic. Wu held 0-40 on Djokovic's serve at 3-2, giving him six break points and a realistic chance of forcing a decider. Djokovic saved all six. He then broke Wu to close out the match, but not before being seen stretching his back and wincing repeatedly across the final two sets. Djokovic himself admitted he "should have lost" the fourth set.
"It felt really challenging today, Wu deserves a round of applause for his incredible performance," Djokovic said on court. "As for how I'm feeling, I'm feeling happy but not the freshest I guess. It didn't feel like the first round to be honest."
Djokovic described Wu as a player without an obvious weakness during the match. "He put me under a lot of pressure. I've never faced him before; I knew that he loves hitting the ball very flat and very aggressively from the back of the court and he loves protecting the line. But he definitely surprised me with the level of every shot he had in his game from his return serves, forehand, backhand and at some point he didn't really have a weakness."
Despite the physical concerns, Djokovic credited his years of experience on the Wimbledon courts for pulling him through. "Playing on this surface, these kind of matches are decided in few points and few shots. Thankfully I have the experience of the last 20+ years of playing on this court that can help me a little bit and manage the situation. It would be nice to combine the experience with a young fresh body - that would be the winning formula."
Had Wu converted even one of those six break points in the fourth set, the match would almost certainly have gone past Wimbledon's 11pm curfew, forcing both players back on court Tuesday to finish.
