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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Vincent Whelan

Rachael Blackmore takes in Wimbledon with boyfriend Brian Hayes

Rachael Blackmore has shared a couple of photos from her experience at Wimbledon alongside boyfriend and fellow jockey Brian Hayes.

The Tipperary woman wore a blue dress while both of them needed a pair of shades with how glorious the weather was.

Of course the attention at SW19 today was focused on the men's final where Novak Djokovic claimed his 21st Grand Slam title, to leave him just one behind Rafael Nadal in the all-time list.

The Serb saw off Nick Kyrgios in four sets despite losing the opening one by six games to four to eventually triumph 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6.

The 35-year-old has not been beaten at Wimbledon since losing in the quarter-finals in 2017. It is a remarkable record and, despite a fast start from Kyrgios, this was probably one of his more straightforward wins.

And the magnitude of Djokovic’s achievement should not be camouflaged by the tiresome antics of Kyrgios who ranted and raved throughout his first Slam final appearance. Indeed, it was soon clear Centre Court was going to be treated to the full Kyrgios repertoire.

READ MORE: Nick Kyrgios blames Wimbledon spectator ‘who’s had 700 drinks’ as he rants through final

To begin with, in fairness, it was the positive section of that repertoire. In the second game of the match, there was a 125mph second serve winner and the infamous underarm delivery. It was hard to believe but Djokovic looked a little fazed and surrendered the first break of the match with a double fault. With the tweener soon on show, it actually looked, at times, as though Kyrgios was showboating.

But there was little showboating when it came his serve, closing out the first set with an ace. Djokovic is not unaccustomed to losing the first set of a big match - it happened against Cameron Norrie on Friday - and he duly settled into a groove but still needed to save four break points in the ninth game of the second set before closing it out.

And having been on, by his abysmal standards, fairly decent behaviour, Kyrgios began to conduct a running dialogue with whoever would listen - his entourage, the umpire, the crowd, himself. At one point, he wanted a female spectator ejected from the arena because “she’s the one who looks like she has had about 700 drinks.”

Whatever you think of his shot-making, he can become incredibly tiresome and, to put it bluntly, not very pleasant. But Djokovic watched it all with what looked like a sense of amused detachment and one break of serve was enough for him to take the third set.

After more protracted moaning at his friends in the box, Kyrgios did appear to regain concentration in the fourth set but, by then, Djokovic was in his winning bubble. And while he could not manage to break the Kyrgios service game, he did win the tie-break 7-3 to win the match and that magical seventh Wimbledon title.

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