Wimbledon 2025: Novak Djokovic shows immense powers of recovery to down Alex De Minaur and reach last eight
Here was a four-set match which felt every bit a contest that took five, those present to witness it no doubt fully aware the 34-shot rallies they were watching were far from normal procedure. This was seven-time Wimbledon champion Djokovic being pushed to the absolute brink, and wearing it in his facial expression and body language for much of the ordeal. And then still getting through.
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Djokovic won 1-6 6-4 6-4 6-4 on Monday afternoon but at one time or other appeared to place blame on himself, his opponent, the glare of the sun, the size of the court, and those sat up in his player's box. Even in the three sets he won, things were far from plain sailing.
The brutal truth is that as his years tick up and up, this is the sort of match the result of which 38-year-old Djokovic will begin to fall on the wrong side of, in the months and years to come. For now, he still possesses that sixth gear. It has powered him to the last eight and makes him a contender for the title.
Roger Federer, holder of a record eight Wimbledon titles to Djokovic's seven, watched on behind his Bond-like sunglasses from the Royal Box.
'It's probably the first time he's watched me and I've won the match,' Djokovic quipped afterwards, the stresses of a fraught match if not fully dissipated then by now mostly alleviated. 'The last couple [he's watched] I've lost!'
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Djokovic waved his arms in frustration and yelled at himself when shots landed out and De Minaur's landed in, and at no time was that truer than in a truly extraordinary first set. Djokovic produced four double faults in his first three service games — one of them the very first point of the match — and had his serve broken three unanswered times as De Minaur raced ahead. For the very first time, Djokovic had lost an opening set at Wimbledon by the bruising scoreline of 6-1.
He broke De Minaur's serve for the first time in the very first game of the second set but then had real trouble consolidating it. In fact, after a marathon game that lasted 18 minutes and 53 seconds, De Minaur broke straight back — every single game at this point feeling a monumental signal of the direction of travel the match was set to take from there.
Exasperated: Djokovic made no attempt to hide his frustration (AFP via Getty Images)
De Minaur, 12 years his opponent's junior, was moving around the court so freely, described by Djokovic later as 'one of the quickest, if not the quickest player, we have on the Tour.' Djokovic, meanwhile, was struggling to clear the net with routine forehand strokes and looked laboured and irritable.
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Each player was then broken in a match lacking anything remotely resembling rhythm, but Djokovic then appeared to wake up momentarily, breaking the 11th seed to love for 4-3. When he saved two break points to serve out to get back on terms at one set all, he let out an almighty roar, as much an effort to rock his opponent further off course from there as a celebration of regaining parity.
The decisive break of a very tense and cagey third set again came late on as Djokovic took it 6-4 also, but De Minaur would not go away. He sandwiched a break of the veteran's serve by holding twice himself. He led 4-1 in the fourth.
Djokovic's propensity to heave himself back into contention still endures, though, and he had the last laugh at the end of the match's most jaw-dropping rally to break back for 4-3. He held for 4-4, broke for 5-4, served himself into the last eight for 6-4, and just like that De Minaur was out. This is, it turned out, still how it all works. After a song and dance, Djokovic still makes it through in the end.
'I'm still trying to process the whole thing,' said Djokovic afterwards, having plodded over to a microphone by the side of the court. 'It wasn't a great start from me. It was very windy conditions and he was managing the conditions much better.
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'It was a lot of cat and mouse play. He exposes all your weaknesses. I was very pleased to hang in tough in this one.
'As the match wore on, I was starting to find my forehand and starting to make more winners.'
On Wednesday comes a meeting with Italy's Flavio Cobolli for a place in the semi-finals. Weathered and shattered, Djokovic ploughs on.
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Wimbledon 2025: Who's Who In The Royal Box And Down On The Grass
Britain's Queen Camilla (center) and her sister Annabel Eliot (left) assume the front row in the Royal Box alongside the Chair of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club Board, Deborah Jevans (right). In the row behind, standing until the Queen is seated, British actor Hugh Grant and his wife, Swedish producer Anna Elisabet Eberstein, await the quarter-final tennis match between Russia's Mirra Andreeva and Switzerland's Belinda Bencic on the tenth day of the 2025 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, southwest London, on July 9, 2025. (Photo by Glyn KIRK / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE (Photo by GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images The 2025 Wimbledon women's singles semifinal between Mirra Andreeva of Russia and Switzerland's Belinda Bencic on the afternoon of July 9 was a celestial affair, not just because Bencic powered through the younger Russian in straight sets, to set up a fine final against World No. 1 Iga Świątek. The game bore more than a little extra wattage because, first, the Queen, pictured above settling into the royals' customary front row-on-the-court seats in the Royal Box, flanked on her left by the Chair of the All England Tennis and Croquet Club board Deborah Jevens. In the second row, noted tennis fan Hugh Grant and his wife, Anna Elisabet Eberstein, stand properly for the duration until the Queen and the Chair of the All England board take their seats. The action in the Royal Box is not quite as swift as the action on the court, but over the two-week-long tournament, the Court of St. James does play a cutthroat game of musical chairs in the Royal Box that definitely provides the world at large — well north of 25 million viewers globally in each of the last three years, atop a half-million people who actually attend — with one hellishly fine barometric pressure reading of British society. Grant engaged in a very sociable conversation with the Queen and her sister, then settled in. But the settling in seemed slowly to overtake the esteemed actor. He seemed to nod off for what might be diplomatically described as a moment of altered consciousness, or lapsed attention, or perhaps even a sort of Zen-like power-nap/drift-off — according to CNN. Perhaps a rough night at rehearsals for the chronically employable actor, or, more likely, with them out of school, a long morning with the kids — five in total, three of whom are with Eberstein, two of whom were authored by Grant and his ex-partner, Tinglan Hong. At any rate, a human moment for the dad of those good people. We're naming no names here, but it's arguable whether it's wise to take a nap in public, period, except on a beach or beside a swimming pool, or, say, with your platoon on a long march. Put more directly, to take a nap in the Royal Box during a Wimbledon quarterfinal with the Queen sitting within arm's length seems a parlous choice of lollygagging terrain. What if she turns round and asks you a question? The white-hot global focus by the paparazzi on the occupants of the seats around her is a given. Arguably, Grant is used to bathing in that sort of klieg-lit glare, but, as an Englishman sitting there, technically at her invitation, wouldn't one really rather be nodding off few more rows distant? Admirably, the Queen and the King fight similar biological urges at thousands of obligatory public functions. CNN reported its razor-thin perhaps-a-nap thesis in a three-paragraph digital piece published at 7:53 p.m. EDT (2:53 p.m. British Summer Time). By then, the emoji-rich posting on X (the classic weeping-with-laughter among them) and other platforms was, predictably, viral. For the last couple of centuries we've heard the phrase 'Royal Box' in reference to certain select seating areas in British theatres and at sporting venues such as Wimbledon and Ascot, so the words have become normalized. But in fact the Royal Box at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club is very much an extension of the Court of St. James. 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