![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/cb9cf122173610dc6a46b02a27eff625.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nNovak Djokovic has enjoyed such a cruisy second-round victory over Stefanos Tsitsipas at Wimbledon that he had time during the centre court match to prank a ball kid between sets.<\/p>\n
The 24-time grand slam champion swept Tsitsipas aside 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 in just an hour and 38 minutes, in a performance described as “vintage” Djokovic.<\/p>\n
“I like the terminology ‘vintage,'” the seven-time Wimbledon winner said.<\/p>\n
“It’s nice, brings back the best days.”<\/p>\n
In commentary, 2017 semifinalist Sam Querrey said Djokovic was well and truly in the hunt to equal Roger Federer’s men’s record of eight titles at SW19.<\/p>\n
“That’s the best he’s played since the Australian Open. That was an almost flawless performance,” Querrey said.<\/p>\n
“If he can sustain that level for five more matches, there’s no reason to think he doesn’t have a good shot at the title.”<\/p>\n
While Djokovic’s form has been impressive in his opening victories over Yibing Wu and two-time major finalist Tsitsipas, the Serb has spent a lot of his time between points limbering up his 39-year-old body.<\/p>\n
And while his Greek opponent was taking his customary break between the second and third sets, Djokovic was feeling relaxed enough to have some fun with a ball kid.<\/p>\n
He was trying to cut off a bit of excess material from his shoulder when he asked for some assistance.<\/p>\n
As she looked to make the cut, Djokovic flinched as if she had caught his skin, making her jump.<\/p>\n
He quickly apologised as the crowd chuckled and she put her hand at her heart, and he made sure to apologise immediately after the match too while she laughed courtside.<\/p>\n
“This kind of thing surfaces when you’re two sets to love up,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There did not appear to be any bad feelings. (Supplied: Stan)<\/p>\n
“Stefanos went to change so I had some spare time.<\/p>\n
“I’m sorry if I scared her. It was probably not that great of a joke. It made me a bit more relaxed.”<\/p>\n
Djokovic next plays French 25th seed Arthur Rinderknech.<\/p>\n
Earlier, top seed Jannik Sinner took on Portugal’s Nuno Borges and after the hazards the Italian faced in his five-set win over Serbia’s Miomir Kecmanovi\u0107 in his opener, the 24-year-old kept it straight down the middle to reach round three.<\/p>\n
World number 48 Borges had a \u200cset point in the second set, but Sinner was relatively untroubled as he raised his game at the pivotal moments for a 7-6(7\/4), 7-6(7\/2), 6-4 victory.<\/p>\n
“Second match on grass, I was not looking for perfection,” Sinner said.<\/p>\n
“I tried to improve. Felt like at times I did. Now we’ll see how it goes.”<\/p>\n
Eighth seed Daniil Medvedev enjoyed a four-set win \u200cagainst Spain’s Daniel Merida; French Open runner-up \u200cFlavio Cobolli, seeded ninth, beat Mariano Navone; and Brazilian teenager Joao Fonseca was roared on by his yellow-clad fan club as he blazed past Jesper de Jong.<\/p>\n
American qualifier Michael Zheng backed up his opening win against British number one Cameron Norrie with a straight-sets win against Colombia’s Nicolas Mejia.<\/p>\n
He was joined in round three by fellow American Tommy Paul, who claimed his second successive straight-sets win, this time against Kwon Soon-woo.<\/p>\n
ABC\/Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic has enjoyed such a cruisy second-round victory over Stefanos Tsitsipas at Wimbledon that he had time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[317361,432,433,99,14907,428,96],"class_list":["post-737832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ball-kid","tag-jannik-sinner","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-sports","tag-stefanos-tsitsipas","tag-tennis","tag-wimbledon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}