Wimbledon finalist Novak Djokovic was hit with a fine that he may not even notice when he cashes in his runner-up cheque.
The 24-time major winner was fined £6177 (NZ$12,650) for smashing his racquet in yesterday’s five-set thriller against Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz. It will be taken out of his £1.175m(NZ$2.43m) runner-up prize, a 0.5 per cent cut in pay.
Djokovic lost his cool at a pivotal point in the deciding set, when Alcaraz won a break point in the third game. The Serbian smashed his racquet against one of the wooden net poles.
The umpire immediately issued Djokovic a warning for a code violation.
Alcaraz went on to hold serve and win the almost five-hour final 1-6 7-6 (8-6) 6-1 3-6 6-4 for his maiden Wimbledon title.
“There’s not much to talk about that,” Djokovic said when asked about the incident which was his second code violation of the final, the first being a time violation.
“Second one was frustration. I had break points in the second game. Yeah, just tough, tough couple of points. He played amazing to break my serve, which was enough to win the fifth.”
“The first one was the time violation, so yeah. Not a great moment again, but you just kind of have to accept it.”
Djokovic was infamously disqualified from the 2020 US Open when he hit a ball out of frustration during his round of 16 clash, with the ball accidentally hitting a line judge in the throat.
