Croatian Goran Ivanisevic experienced a bittersweet evening as his country’s football team reached the World Cup final but his Wimbledon charge bowed out.
The 2001 Wimbledon champion is coaching Milos Raonic and Ivanisevic watched on in the evening as the Canadian lost in four sets in the quarter-finals to John Isner on a near-deserted Court One.
Ivanisevic would have been lifted later by Croatia coming from behind to beat England in their semi-final in Moscow.
Semi-finals sealed with a winner@JohnIsner will face Kevin Anderson in the last four of #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/1aGgrXkLsn
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 11, 2018
He had spoken of his desire to watch the match “in the pub with the other English people and hopefully I’m going to be the last one standing and laughing”.
The grounds at Wimbledon were sparsely populated as England attempted to reach their first World Cup final since 1966.
Two men’s quarter-finals were still in progress on the main show courts for much of the football match.
Centre Court was busy for the five-set thriller between Rafael Nadal and Juan Martin del Potro, but there were thousands of empty seats on Court One.
With two important matches in action on a warm evening, Henman Hill would usually still be busy late on, but that was far from the case this time.
One man shouted “Come on England” on Centre Court soon after Kieran Trippier scored, but there was otherwise little celebration.
Wimbledon chiefs stuck to their guns, refusing to show the football on the big screen in front of the hill.
There were several people keeping up with action on their phones, with one woman kitted out in England attire watching on a bench while waiting for Martina Navratilova to play her women’s invitational doubles match on Court Three.
The grounds were completely deserted by the time England lost, with all matches finished for the day.
