Sitting down, the 24-time major winner decided it was time to adjust what looked like sports tape on his shoulder – and he enlisted the services of a ball kid to help.<\/p>\n
He handed her a pair of scissors, flinching away as she cut, before breaking into a smile and reassuring her that he was joking, and she had not, in fact, inadvertently injured one of the favourites for the title.<\/p>\n
“I guess these kind of [jokes] can surface when you are two sets to love up rather than two sets down, but Stefanos went to change, and I had some spare time,” Djokovic explained on-court afterwards.<\/p>\n
“And I\u2019m sorry, I don\u2019t know if she\u2019s around, I\u2019m sorry if I scared her, it was probably not that great of a joke, I guess. Just made me a bit more relaxed.”<\/p>\n
Fortunately for the Serbian, the ball kid was still in attendance and the cameras showed she saw the funny side of the moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But he was not done there, especially given the match was being watched by several famous faces in the Royal Box.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two-time Masters winner McIlroy was in attendance, along with Justin Rose, Luke Donald and a few other members of the Team Europe side who won the Ryder Cup on US soil last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But while Djokovic was quick to lead the crowd in a round of applause for McIlroy\u2019s Masters triumph earlier this season<\/a>, the seven-time Wimbledon winner had his eye on a certain item of clothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I feel very privileged to be walking out on the court aged… 30-plus,” he joked.<\/p>\n “Age is just a number, and a few people who know something about that are in the Royal Box, Rory [McIlroy], Justin [Rose], Luke [Donald], nice to see you guys.\u00a0Congrats Team Europe on the Ryder Cup. I watched you guys.<\/p>\n “Rory what a beautiful jacket, is that a Masters jacket? It must be. Round of applause for Rory for Masters please.<\/p>\n “I want that jacket, I\u2019ll play you – this jacket for that jacket! We play tennis, not golf!”<\/p>\n Djokovic has been walking out onto the court in a blazer of his own this Wimbledon, a white number to fit the club\u2019s strict rules, with green piping.<\/p>\n Whether McIlroy would be interested in a swap remains to be seen. The Masters jacket is a coveted prize, one of the most famous in golf – but perhaps now he has two of them, he might be more tempted to take Djokovic up on his offer.<\/p>\n Rory McIlroy wears his green jacket at Wimbledon<\/p>\n Image credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n Although it might depend on exactly the rules of the tennis match Djokovic proposed – McIlroy might fancy his chances at something like the One Point Slam seen in Australia<\/a> earlier this year. <\/p>\n One thing that is certain is that Djokovic is moving on to the third round at Wimbledon yet again, as he continues his bid for a 25th Grand Slam title.<\/p>\n Add TNT Sports as a preferred source here<\/a> to enjoy more content like this.Enjoy daily highlights from Wimbledon 2026 on tntsports.co.uk<\/a>\u00a0and the TNT Sports app, plus watch and stream highlights each evening and the men’s and women’s singles finals live on TNT Sports and HBO Max<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Highlights: Djokovic and Sinner survive first-round scares as Sabalenka breezes through Video credit: SNTV Djokovic was in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[399,3342,12737],"class_list":["post-31340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rory-mcilroy","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-tennis","tag-wimbledon-mens-singles-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"picture\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-76ebfe3e-a740-43a4-b23d-2b6992d4ce8f.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n