At Wimbledon, Portuguese tennis players pay tribute to Diogo Jota with black ribbon
The All England Club has a strict dress code for players while on court but permission to wear the ribbon was granted after the two soccer players died in the crash in Spain.
Advertisement
Nuno Borges, who at No. 37 is Portugal's highest-ranked tennis player, attached a ribbon to his hat for his third-round match against Karen Khachanov on No. 3 Court.
Francisco Cabral wore a black ribbon on his left sleeve during a doubles match.
___
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
The Associated Press
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
27 minutes ago
- New York Times
Wimbledon's curfew rule explained: The tennis Grand Slam with an early bedtime
THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, LONDON — Wimbledon has a roster of annual staples. An overnight queue for tickets. An all-white clothing rule. Grass-court tennis. And baffling outsiders with one or many of its traditions. At 10:18 p.m. Monday night, the latter two came together, as they so often do. American No. 1 Taylor Fritz and France's Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard finished the fourth set of what had become a five-set match, Fritz leveling the contest at 2-2. But instead of continuing, they met at the net with tournament officials. Words were exchanged. Arms were flung up. Then the players picked up their bags and walked off the court. Advertisement Then at 9:30 p.m. Thursday night, Ben Shelton sat down to prepare to serve to win his match against Rinky Hijikata of Australia. Or so he thought. The chair umpire instead announced that the match had been suspended, leaving Shelton remonstrating with a tournament supervisor as darkness fell. Shelton's match had a fairly pedestrian explanation: the darkness was about to prevent the electronic line calling (ELC) system, which this year replaced line judges after 147 years, from working properly. He came back the next day and took 70 seconds and four points to see off Hijikata. Fritz and Mpetshi Perricard's match, by contrast, was at the mercy of the most sacred and strange tradition of them all: the 11 p.m. curfew imposed on a sporting event beamed across the globe. Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam with an early bedtime, and the lights go out on time, every time, with no exceptions — almost. The curfew was introduced in 2009, when the All England Club installed a retractable roof on Centre Court. That meant that play could go on later at a tournament that previously ran to the sun's clock, but local residents — and their council — did not want fans streaming past their houses in the early hours. 'The 11pm curfew is a planning condition applied to balance the consideration of the local residents with the scale of an international tennis event that takes place in a residential area,' Merton Council said. 'The challenge of transport connectivity and getting visitors home safely is also a key consideration.' Not annoying the residents is a particular concern this year. The All England Club will be in the High Court next week, for a judicial review of planning permission to build 39 new courts on the old golf course in Wimbledon Park. That would allow Wimbledon to bring qualifying on site, in line with the other four majors, but the curfew, which is also an outlier, is a frontier that it will not cross. Advertisement The French Open's night session regularly goes beyond midnight, with play not starting until 8:15 p.m. local time because, the tournament organizers say, people will not leave work in time to begin earlier. The U.S. Open and Australian Open wear their late-night tennis as a kind of badge of honor, with two matches scheduled. The Billie Jean King Tennis Center and Melbourne Park are more removed from metropolitan life than the All England Club, but their status as late-night events goes beyond geography. The ubiquity of late-night tennis at the U.S. Open means some American fans were left baffled by Fritz's match being stopped prematurely. 'I had no idea about the curfew,' said Theo Moll, a 20-year-old student from Cleveland, Ohio who visited Wimbledon Friday with his dad, Rob. 'I remember seeing that on the first night and saying, 'What's going on, why do they stop?' And then looking into it. Fritz was behind and then he got close to winning and I was like, 'What's the score, how did it end? It didn't?'' Late finishes are almost integral to the culture of the tournaments, even if the impact on players and fans has recently been acknowledged to be more severe than the benefits of increased attention and excitement. Small concessions have been introduced about when matches can start to try and mitigate the situation, though there is still always the chance of a very late finish in New York and Melbourne if matches run long. At Wimbledon, there are no concessions. At 11 p.m., play stops. Just once in recent history has the tournament made an exception, when Andy Murray beat Marcos Baghdatis in four sets at 11:02 p.m in 2012. The clock had struck 11 with Murray up 5-1 in the fourth set and about to serve for the match. 'Common sense,' tournament organizers said at the time, was the driver behind a two-minute extension on one of the strictest rules in sports. Fritz himself also couldn't understand. Fans on No. 1 Court were generally furious and let their feelings be known, while broadcasters — including ones in America where it was around 5 p.m. ET were similarly perplexed. Foreign broadcasters are often one of the key stakeholders in scheduling decisions. Not so at Wimbledon, where the Centre Court 1:30 p.m. start time, by far the latest of all the majors, is not because of any televisual considerations but so that the spectators in hospitality can get lunch in before play starts. Advertisement Going home at 11 p.m. is also ingrained in British culture. Pubs close at 11, and in general it's not a country where people eat late or stay out especially late. In the UK sitcom The Office, the character Tim articulates the difference between the UK and the U.S. by describing a nightclub called 'New York, New York.' 'They call it the nightclub that never sleeps. That closes at one.' Wimbledon is the tennis manifestation of this attitude, the sensible friend who likes to call it a night early. Wimbledon has work to do in the morning. Wimbledon will absolutely not be doing shots at 2 a.m. As much as the Centre Court fans were upset by the Fritz vs. Mpetshi Perricard match finishing early, many are happy to leave when it gets dark. As for the players, barely any want to be playing after midnight given how late that means they actually get to bed, and how that then affects them for a day or so after. When Djokovic beat Lorenzo Musetti at 3:07 a.m. at last year's French Open, sports medicine experts told The Athletic that doing so would increase his risk of injury going forward. In Djokovic's next match the following day, he tore his meniscus in his right knee. The Wimbledon attitude to night-time tennis is not without issues. After beating Mpetshi Perricard the next day, Fritz said that he would prefer to have a late finish to coming back the next day. Dusk stopping play has also been a feature of this year's tournament, with matches held over on all of the first four days, including on both main courts on Monday — despite no rain on three of the days. If matches are becoming so drawn out that it's a struggle to fit in a full day's play at Wimbledon before night falls with the current start times, then the structure of the tournament will start to creak. Shelton and Hijikata's match Thursday did not start until around 7:15 p.m., giving them just two hours and 15 minutes to rattle through it. Matches in the men's singles draw last year averaged two hours and 43 minutes last year, according to data from Opta. Advertisement They very nearly managed it, but were stopped with Shelton a game away and about to serve for the match. He and Hijikata had already discussed stopping at the end of the second set and then again a few games into the third, and so finishing with the end potentially 70 seconds away was deeply unsatisfying. Unlike the curfew, there isn't a designated stop time for bad light. It's down to the discretion of tournament staff, who decided that it was too dark even though Shelton was told that there was five minutes before the ELC system would no longer be able to function. 'I was telling him, I only need 60 seconds,' a smiling Shelton said in a news conference Friday. Adding floodlights on the outside courts would not solve the issue of grass courts becoming slippy once night falls and the temperature drops. The daylight rule, like the curfew, is more sensible than it perhaps first appears. Shelton, who was sanguine about having to come back to beat Hijikata on Friday, said that adjusting to different conditions and regulations was all part of being a tennis player. Nowhere is this truer than Wimbledon, which has always been a law unto itself. — Caoimhe O'Neill contributed reporting.
Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Ousmane Dembélé and Kylian Mbappé pay homage to Diogo Jota with dedicated goal celebrations
Following the devastating passing of Liverpool forward Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva on Thursday morning, after the pair were involved in a tragic car accident, the football world has continued to pay their respects and tributes. Kylian Mbappé (26) and Ousmane Dembélé (28) were the latest players to pay their respects to the Portuguese international attacker with their goal celebrations overnight during the FIFA Club World Cup. The France internationals scored in their respective matches, representing PSG and Real Madrid, against Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. Advertisement Dembélé celebrated his late goal against the Bundesliga champions with Jota's iconic video game celebration. The 28-year-old was renowned for his obsession with video games and competed in professional e-sports. Mbappé signed '20' after scoring a bicycle kick against Dortmund – the number Jota famously wore at the Anfield club. GFFN | Liam Wraith
CNN
41 minutes ago
- CNN
Diogo Jota's spirit and tenacity made him the perfect fit for Liverpool, a city that has had to fight
There is a Diogo Jota performance that many Liverpool supporters will remember above all others. In October 2022, with the Reds struggling badly for form, Jota and Co. came up against a Manchester City team that would go on to win a historic treble that season. A month before the 2022 men's World Cup – the tournament Jota later said was 'one of his dreams' to play in – many players might have taken it easy for fear of injuring themselves. Not Jota. The Portuguese forward did not contribute a goal or an assist, but he played 100 minutes and battled to win the ball back on countless occasions. Liverpool won 1-0, but Jota's tireless performance saw him go down with an injury in the final minute. He would go on to miss the World Cup. With the tournament set to come around again next year, Jota would very likely have finally fulfilled that dream in 2026. That opportunity, along with the far more important chance to experience life as a young father and newlywed, was cruelly snatched from the 28-year-old on Thursday morning when he and his brother, André Silva, died in a car crash in northwestern Spain. Maybe Jota would have avoided the injury against Manchester City if he had stayed out of the difficult tackles. But that is not the kind of player he was. 'The way he played the game was full of this sort of scampering energy. … He would hunt the ball down aggressively, and he'd hunt space down aggressively.' Neil Atkinson, CEO and host of The Anfield Wrap, told CNN Sports' Amanda Davies. Jota's technical gifts – while remarkably apparent at times – were not on the level of those of some of his teammates. But it was that willingness to fight that made him such a popular figure on Merseyside, and the reason why it has been difficult to go to a Liverpool game in the last few years and not hear the crowd's famous song for him. 'They loved that work ethic, that sheer desire, and the fact that he had almost a sense of mischief about him in the manner of his goals as well,' Atkinson said. 'And I think that very much endeared him to the supporters.' The Portuguese international was vocal about his philosophy of hard work on the pitch. 'As a fan – I was a fan myself – you want to see a player fighting for the club, for the badge that they both love,' he said in a video which was released by Liverpool on Thursday following the news of his death. Prev Next But that tenacity was not just limited to his attitude on the field. As a young player struggling for games at one of the biggest clubs in the world – Atlético Madrid – the forward opted to join Wolverhampton Wanderers, a team which, at that time, was in the Championship, the second tier of English soccer. His bravery was rewarded as he became one of the best players in the team, eventually signing for Liverpool in 2020. It was at Liverpool where Jota appeared to find particular kinship with a city that, like him, has often had to fight. In 1981, after riots began in Liverpool as a result of tensions between police and the Black community, then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was secretly urged by her finance minister, Geoffrey Howe, to pursue a policy of 'managed decline' with reference to the city. According to Howe, spending public money on the city would be like 'trying to make water flow uphill.' Eight years later, when the Hillsborough disaster claimed the lives of 97 Liverpool supporters at an FA Cup semifinal, the city once again felt the brunt of the establishment. Both the local police and some sections of the British media blamed Liverpool fans. Despite tireless campaigning by the victims' families, it would take until 2016 for an inquest to rule that those who died were unlawfully killed and that fan behavior did not cause or contribute to the disaster. Liverpool is a club that has had more than its fair share of tragedy. Less than six weeks ago, a car rammed into a crowd of people at a parade to celebrate the club's Premier League title win, injuring dozens of people, including children. In the face of this latest tragedy Thursday morning, the city will once again come together to grieve. 'The only way to get through this is to get through it together,' Atkinson said. The importance of that collectiveness was echoed by another Liverpool fan, Sally – who did not give her surname when she spoke to CNN Sports' Matias Grez outside Anfield on Thursday. 'You stick together because that's the only way it's going to work,' she said. 'That's the community spirit. It's not just Liverpool, it's Everton as well. Rivalries aside, times like this everyone comes together. It doesn't matter who you support.' Indeed, among the hundreds of scarves, flowers and messages that were left for Jota and his brother outside Anfield, items laid by fans of Everton, Liverpool's local rival, were visible. 'I'm not really a massive one for social media, so I hadn't seen any of what I'm now seeing in front of me,' another supporter, Simon Walker, told CNN in reference to the tributes left at the stadium. 'But I'm not surprised in the slightest because this is how this club and this city operates.' To say that Jota – a man who grew up in a small town outside Porto, 886 miles (1426 kilometers) away – fit well in Liverpool would be an understatement. That affinity extended to some of the less-Portuguese pastimes. In tribute posts on social media, former teammates Andy Robertson and Caoimhín Kelleher both referenced their surprise at Jota's enjoyment of darts and horse racing, with Robertson even jokingly referring to him as 'Diogo MacJota.' 'You could relate to him,' Sally, the Liverpool supporter who spoke to CNN, said Thursday. 'You could tell he was a down-to-earth fella. He was very humble. He wasn't showy-offy. He was just very much a family man. 'I think that's what relates everyone in the city to him, because we're all like a family.' The funeral for the 28-year-old and his brother took place in their hometown of Gondomar on Saturday morning. The pain that their family, Jota's wife and their three children are experiencing far exceeds that of those who marveled from afar at his performances on a soccer pitch. But it is a testament to Jota's spirit and tenacity that Liverpool too is grieving the loss of one of its most beloved sons.
