With Roger Federer, an eight-time Wimbledon winner, sitting in the front row of the Royal Box, so little went right at the outset for the 38-year-old Djokovic on the grass below during a breezy afternoon with the temperature in the 60s Fahrenheit (teens Celsius), a week after matches were contested in record-breaking heat.

The match started with one of the poorest sets the Serbian star has ever played and turned into an absorbing war of attrition as the Australian went “toe-to-toe with one of the greats”.

Alex de Minaur wowed the tennis world as he went agonisingly close to sending Novak Djokovic crashing out of Wimbledon. But at the end of the day it was another case of near enough not being good enough for the Aussie tennis player.