{"id":27192,"date":"2026-06-29T11:26:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/27192\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T11:26:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:26:19","slug":"wimbledon-djokovic-clash-a-dream-come-true-for-wu-zheng-hoping-its-third-time-lucky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/27192\/","title":{"rendered":"Wimbledon: Djokovic clash a \u2018dream come true\u2019 for Wu, Zheng hoping it\u2019s third time lucky"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chinese tennis star Wu Yibing faces Novak Djokovic for the first time in his professional career in the first round of the men\u2019s singles at Wimbledon on Monday, and said it was a \u201cdream come true\u201d.<\/p>\n

In what will be only his second appearance at the grass court grand slam, Wu will play against his idol, a seven-time champion in London, and said he \u201ccould not believe it\u201d when the draw was made.<\/p>\n

The encounter will also mark just the second time Wu has played on the centre court at a major tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo play Djokovic here on Centre Court at Wimbledon is the dream of many players, including mine,\u201d Wu said. \u201cFor me, he is the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) of tennis, and I can\u2019t wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wu\u2019s previous experience of playing on the biggest stage was at the US Open in 2022, when he lost 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 to defending champion Daniil Medvedev in the third round in Arthur Ashe Stadium, having navigated the qualifiers, and two main draw matches on his debut at a grand slam.<\/p>\n

\"ZhengZheng Qinwen arrives for a practice round ahead of the The Wimbledon Championships.Photo: EPA<\/p>\n

\u201cI am just looking forward to it all,\u201d the 26-year-old added. \u201cThe chance to play on Centre Court and against Djokovic after all the things he has achieved in his career and in his life is incredible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese tennis star Wu Yibing faces Novak Djokovic for the first time in his professional career in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[607,312,9687,1347,10272,1021,10271,7680,2219,1798,139,28,463,3319,285,7157,7023,5054],"class_list":["post-27192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-all-england-lawn-tennis-and-croquet-club","tag-arthur-ashe-stadium","tag-bianca-andreescu","tag-centre-court","tag-chinese","tag-daniil-medvedev","tag-elisabetta-cocciaretto","tag-hubei","tag-katerina-siniakova","tag-monaco","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-tennis","tag-us-open","tag-wang-xinyu","tag-wimbledon","tag-wu-yibing","tag-zhang-shuai","tag-zheng-qinwen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}