Carlos Alcaraz is slightly worried about a possible scheduling conflict for his Wimbledon quarterfinal on Tuesday.
If the defending champion’s match against Tommy Paul is played in the evening, there’s a good chance he won’t be able to watch Spain’s semifinal against France at soccer’s European Championship.
“Hopefully on Tuesday we are not going to play at the same time,” the Spaniard said. “Hopefully I will be able to see a little bit from the match.”
It’s an issue that pops up every time Wimbledon coincides with a major soccer tournament such as the World Cup or the Euros. Players often find themselves keeping half an eye on how their country’s national team is doing even while focusing on their own progress at the grass-court Grand Slam tournament.
Even the crowd gets caught up in it, as Novak Djokovic found out on Saturday.
His third-round match was played while England faced Switzerland in the Euro 2024 quarterfinals, and Djokovic could tell the Centre Court crowd wasn’t fully focused on the tennis. When news filtered down that England had won a penalty shootout to advance — a rarity for a country that has a history of losing such shootouts — the crowd cheered so loudly that Djokovic’s opponent Alexei Popyrin had to interrupt his serve and pause for a moment in the second set.
