Tennis world stunned by Alejandro Davidovich Fokina's 'insane' move at Wimbledon

Wimbledon was left in absolute disbelief in the dying stages of the five set third round epic between Holger Rune and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, when the Spaniard inexplicably pulled out an underarm serve late in a fifth-set tiebreaker. Fokina, the World No.34, was on serve with the tiebreak delicately poised at 8-8 when he pulled out the underarm serve which he later admitted he was 'nervous' about.

With the entire crowd in shock after Rune easily won the point on the underarm serve, before going on to win the match 6-3, 4-6, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10/8), Fokina candidly admitted after the match that he had 's**t himself' in the high-pressure moment. Clearly frustrated with himself, he told reporters after the match that he had no way of describing what was going through his head when he attempted the underarm.

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Fokina has made a somewhat unfortunate habit of bizarre decision-making at crucial Wimbledon moments, memorably attempting a between the legs shot while on match point in the first round last year. That mistake would end up sending the match to five sets.

Then in the second round, he lost to Jiri Vesely after smashing a ball out of the court while facing match point - losing in the second round on a point penalty. While he said he was happy to have shown some improvement this time around, it was still a disappointing way to bow out.

“I have to accept what happened. I s*** myself and I did not want to play that point,” he told reporters.

“I cannot explain what is going through my mind there in that moment because a lot of things are going through your mind, everybody is shouting and you are nervous. I cannot explain to you what is happening in my head.”

Fokina was unrepentant, though, calling the shot simply "another serve". Asked if he would make the same decision again, he added: "Why not?"

The 24-year-old, who is ranked 34, insisted he would look back on the match positively, saying: "I won't regret anything. I'm happy for this match that I did because I was struggling on grass and how I played today I convinced myself that I have a lot of things in myself."

Tennis fans on social media however, disagreed. High-profile journalist Ben Rothenberg labelled it 'one of the most earth trembling brain farts I’ve ever seen on a tennis court'.

Alcaraz holds off Nicolas Jarry to make Wimbledon fourth round

Meanwhile, world No.1 Carlos Alcaraz, touted as the only realistic challenger to Djokovic this fortnight, joined the Serbian in the fourth round after beating Nicolas Jarry. But it took the Spaniard four sets and almost four hours to get past a player who had not played at Wimbledon for four years and before this week had only won one match here.

Chilean Jarry is a player on an upward curve, however, having risen from 152 in the world at the start of the year to a career-high 28. Nevertheless, it looked like being plain sailing when Alcaraz won his 17th consecutive set with a solitary break.

But in the second-set tie-break, Alcaraz dumped a forehand into the net to drop a set for the first time since he played Arthur Rinderknech in the first round at Queen's last month. Alcaraz regained the initiative to take the third with a solitary break.

Yet the indefatigable Jarry found a second wind and broke again at the start of the fourth, before an incorrect challenge from Alcaraz - who stopped playing only to discover Jarry's return had clipped the baseline - left him on his haunches in annoyance with himself.

But Alcaraz steadied himself to hit back for 3-4 and then showed why he is the player at the top of the tree with an unstoppable backhand return to break before serving out for a hard-earned 6-3 6-7 (6) 6-3 7-5 victory.

With AAP

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