Wimbledon diary: Burrage saves the day while Djokovic makes history

Day one of the Championships and we already have a strong contender for the inaugural Big Heart of Wimbledon award: Britain’s Jodie Burrage. The 23-year-old lost her first-round tie with Lesia Tsurenko but more memorably went to the aid of a stricken ballboy after he suffered what appeared to be a fainting fit during the first set. Burrage, who says she has had similar experiences herself, first fed the lad some of her own energy gel then requested sweets from the crowd. A bag of popular gummy chews were provided (without advertising brands other than the Diary’s official sponsors*, let’s just say they rhymed with Dercy Dig) and Burrage sat with the boy as he recuperated. The All England Club later confirmed: “he’s fine”.

Day one and the records are falling too. Monday’s first rain delay was timed at 10.45am, just three-quarters of an hour into the competition and the earliest in the history of the tournament. Well, strictly speaking, that can’t quite be confirmed as nobody keeps records on rain breaks and Wimbledon will only say the first Monday has been washed out altogether on five occasions. But in the absence of information to the contrary, we’ll take it as a win and just more evidence of Britain competing effectively on the world stage.

Another record! Novak Djokovic became the first male player to win 80 matches across all four grand slams with his four-set victory over South Korea’s Kwon Soon-woo. The Serb may be favourite to retain his singles title a week on Sunday, but has he ever dressed up as a little red car with cloud of exhaust fumes for a mouth? The answer to that is no (at least, it’s not on his Wikipedia). Kwon can make that claim however, after he appeared on South Korean TV’s King of the Masked