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All the emotions come out at Wimbledon on day four, with Aussies spoiling the Murray party, Thanasi Kokkinakis fearing the worst after another injury, while American Taylor Fritz fires up at an opponent after his victory.
Here are five quick hits from day four of Wimbledon 2024.
1: Aussies salute Andy Murray after spoiling emotional party
Australian doubles duo John Peers and Rinky Hijikata are set to go down in the annals of tennis after beating a tearful great Andy Murray on Wimbledon's Centre Court.
But the pair won't be considered party poopers after they knocked out Murray and his older brother Jamie 7-6, (8/6), 6-4 in the first round of the men's doubles, as they then offered the 37-year-old legend a fond tribute amid the emotion-soaked celebrations that followed.
"It is very special for us to come out here and play today. It is nice to get through but I think everyone here just wants to come and support Andy," Hijikata told the cheering crowd after Thursday's triumph.
"It was all about Andy and the great champion he is. It was an absolute honour to step on the court with him before he finishes playing."
Peers, a previous doubles partner of Jamie Murray, echoed the sentiments.
"It is an absolute honour to be out here with Andy. Our words don't do it justice how good he is," he said.
Greats of the game including John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Murray's great rival Novak Djokovic and Australia's most-recent men's champion Lleyton Hewitt were on hand at courtside to salute him.
Sue Barker, the long-time master of ceremonies at Wimbledon, came out of retirement too.
Murray may have the mixed doubles to come with former US Open champion Emma Raducanu, but this was the night the All England Club grasped the opportunity to mark the Scot's ground-breaking 19 years there when he became the king of Wimbledon.
And as he winced and looked awkward in his movement, clearly still uncomfortable following the removal of a cyst from his spine last weekend — the surgery which forced him to abandon his planned singles swan song — it did feel as if this really ought to be his last match at Wimbledon.
If so, it was a near-perfect farewell — except for the result.
Hijikata and Peers were keen to spoil the party, and they proved true to his words by saving a set point in the first before going on to grasp the tie-break.
But after an early break in the second set, the Murray boys — unbeaten together in Davis Cup ties — didn't have the cohesion of their rivals.
There was hardly a dry eye in the house as Murray told Barker post-match: "The last few years have been hard for me.
"It is hard because I would love to keep playing, but I can't. Physically it is too tough now, all of the injuries, they have added up and they haven't been insignificant.
"I want to play forever, I love the sport and it's given me so much…I don't want to stop, so it is hard."
2: Kokkinakis fears the worst over Wimbledon knee injury
Thanasi Kokkinakis will have an MRI scan in London to determine the extent of the injury that's wrecked his Wimbledon hopes — and he fears the worst.
The joy of his remarkable triumph over 17th seed Felix Auger-Aliassime from two sets down on Wednesday turned to misery less than 24 hours later in his second-round match against French qualifier Lucas Pouille.
Trailing 2-6, 7-5, 4-2, Kokkinakis — a big man who's often talked of how tentative he feels with his movement on grass courts — slipped and twisted his left knee while trying to retrieve a forehand.
The 28-year-old tumbled over, clearly in agony, while former French number one Pouille crossed the court to help attend to him.
Kokkinakis eventually soldiered on for one more game, but at 5-2 down limped across to tell Pouille there was no way he could continue.
"It was a tricky match. It started well but there was a weird kind of energy out there, it felt strange," Kokkinakis said.
The Australian had been unhappy with a heckler in the crowd the previous day who had badgered him and Auger-Aliassime to play on after rain had made the surface treacherous.
A fortnight ago Kokkinakis suffered a similar tumble at the Queen's Club Championship on a wet court, which caused a medial collateral ligament injury that kept him out of action for a week.
He also had sprained his troublesome left knee two years ago at a pre-Wimbledon Challenger tournament in nearby Surbiton, which cost him a month out of the sport.
"He was starting to play some good tennis and I was trying to rally and just slipped and hurt my knee," he said.
"I'm going to see the severity after some scans — but I know I've done a similar injury to what I did at Queen's Club.
"But it feels a bit worse, that's my gut feeling."
3: Pain-free Djokovic wins, but movement not right just yet
The good news, Novak Djokovic said, was that his surgically repaired right knee was pain-free at Wimbledon.
The bad news, he knows, is that his movement, such a big part of his success, was not yet back to normal during a 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 7-5 victory in the second round over Jacob Fearnley, a 22-year-old from Scotland who played college tennis in the United States.
That movement will need to improve if Djokovic is going to contend for the title, the only reason he is back competing so soon after tearing his meniscus.
"The more matches I have, the better the chance I'll have to feel more comfortable moving around and gain that speed, agility, change of direction — that freedom that I'm looking for, really.
"I had it in certain moments today, certain moments in the first match, but then it's still not there," said Djokovic, who has won seven of his 24 Grand Slam trophies at the All England Club.
"In a way, it's expected and normal when you come back from surgery. The body's trying to understand what's going on."
When Fearnley, a wild-card entry ranked just 277th and participating in his first major tournament, grabbed the third set, a roar arose at Centre Court.
"I noticed they were probably more towards me in the crowd," Fearnley said. "That was pretty obvious."
Similar sounds came when he went ahead 5-4 in the fourth set.
Might Djokovic, who hasn't reached a final of any tournament this season, really be forced to a fifth set? Of course not. Djokovic grabbed 12 of the last 17 points to reel off the final three games.
Still, the 37-year-old from Serbia, who has been wearing a gray sleeve on his knee, plans to watch some video of this match, the way he usually does, to get a sense of where he can get better for his next match, which will be against Alexei Popyrin on Saturday for a spot in the fourth round.
"I do watch specific moments where I thought I've done well or moments where I haven't done so well, and just try to analyse that myself. Then, of course, with my team members," Djokovic said. "Draw some conclusions, take it to the practice court and work on it."
4: 'Have a nice flight home!': Taylor Fritz gives Arthur Rinderknech a send-off
Taylor Fritz told his Wimbledon opponent, Arthur Rinderknech, to "have a nice flight home" after beating him in a second-round match on Thursday.
The pair got into a bit of a back-and-forth at the net after the 13th-seeded American's 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 victory over France's Rinderknech at the All England Club. This was a rematch of a 2023 French Open contest that Fritz won in front of a rowdy partisan crowd, which he shushed afterward.
Rinderknech made a reference to that earlier match-up during the lead-up to Thursday's meeting, and Fritz heard about it. And was not pleased.
"I'm a very chill person. I don't do anything that could rub people the wrong way, so when someone kind of just goes out of their way to take a shot at me, then I'm not just going to take it," said Fritz, who is from California. "It gave me the extra fire to win."
So when it was time for the post match handshake this time round, there were some words exchanged.
"I just said, 'Have a nice flight home,'" Fritz recounted.
According to Fritz, Rinderknech responded by pointing out that he's still around in doubles.
"I said, 'Oh, congrats. Good for you.' Then he started acting like, 'Why are you blah, blah, blah?'
"I'm like, 'Dude, you know what you said. You know what you said.' Don't disrespect me before the match and then expect me to be all nice after the match," said Fritz, who will take on 24th-seeded Alejandro Tabilo of Chile on Saturday for a spot in the fourth round. "That's not how it works."
5: First 'double bagel' of the tournament arrives on day four
Britain's big day at Wimbledon began in demoralising fashion for wildcard Lily Miyazaki as she was thrashed 6-0, 6-0 by Russia's Daria Kasatkina in less than an hour on Court 18.
Fourteenth seed Kasatkina, winner of last week's Eastbourne title and a dark horse at Wimbledon, was in a merciless mood as she dispatched the British number four in the second round.
It was the first so-called "double-bagel" at this year's Championships.
It was a tough day for Miyazaki, who had beaten Germany's Tamara Korpatsch 6-2, 6-1 in the opening round.
But it was a one-sided contest in the second round, as the 28-year-old could only win 19 points for the whole match, compared to 53 for Kasatkina.
The first set took just 19 minutes, and there was no way back, as Miyazaki racked up five double faults and 31 unforced errors as the match wrapped up in 50 minutes.
AAP/AP/Reuters/ABC
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