Fearnley admitted to being distracted by Djokovic’s score during his debut win at Wimbledon. British wild card Jacob Fearnley will embrace the special experience of playing Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon after his straight-sets victory over Alejandro Moro Canas set up a second-round tie with the 24-time grand slam champion. Fearnley only finished his five-year stint at Texas Christian University (TCU) in May and was ranked outside the top 500 until he won an ATP Challenger event in Nottingham as a qualifier last month.
It helped earn the 22-year-old from Scotland a wild card for this year’s Championships and despite being distracted by Djokovic’s score on a screen outside Centre Court, he marked his debut at the All England Club with a 7-5 6-4 7-6 (12) victory on a buoyant Court Eight. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t watching the scores on Centre Court. It was getting in my head a little bit that I was going to have to play him,” Fearnley said.
“Yeah, it’s going to be a little bit intimidating, but it’s a match that I’m super excited for. It’s the biggest match of my career so far. Just to be able to share the court with a player like that will be really special.
“I’ve watched so many videos of him. It doesn’t look like there’s many flaws in his game. I’m going to just try and enjoy it, put my game out on the court and see what happens.
I don’t think there’s many tactics going into the match.” World number 277 Fearnley arrived in SW19 aft.
