A BBC bungle led to a decisive moment in Novak Djokovic’s Wimbledon match being missed by furious punters at home.
With the seven-time winner a set point down in a crucial moment of his round one clash against the daring Yibing Wu, the Beeb instructed viewers at home to switch from BBC Two to BBC One.
But when they did change channel, tennis fans found they were turning not to the final knockings of a nail-biting set… but Eastenders.
It led to a gap in coverage for up to five minutes and they came back to find Wu had taken the second set.
A host of tennis fans took to X to criticise the BBC for the embarrassing blunder, with the Daily Mail’s Guy Adams writing: ‘Djokovic serving. Set point down: crucial moment. BBC1 cuts feed and tells viewers to switch to BBC2.
‘On BBC2 the Eastenders credits are rolling. Two minutes later BBC finally starts showing the match, by which point the set is already over. F*****g useless, really.’
A BBC blunder meant tennis fans missed a crucial part of Novak Djokovic’s clash with Yibing Wu
A host of viewers took to X to express their fury at the mistake
Another fan wrote: ‘Oh well done @bbctennis. Day1 of the tournament and we’re already doing the switchy BBC2 to BBC1 malarkey.
‘Switch over to find the end of Eastenders, BBC adverts & opening music to find, hey we missed the end of that set. Marvellous.’
One lady seethed: ‘So annoying that the @BBC mess up the channel switch over so that we miss major points in the match! Nobody needs to see Eastenders credits!’
While one more posted: ‘BBC Tennis coverage… How can you switch away from Djokovic at a crucial point and have Eastenders on BBC2? Absolute joke coverage.’
And a final fan wrote: ‘Awful television managed from BBC. Crucial set point at Wimbledon and they switch channel when Eastenders is still on. Missed the winning point.’
Having headed into the tournament seeded seventh, Djokovic was pushed to the limit by Wu on Wimbledon’s opening day.
The Serbian closed out the first set 6-4 and appeared dominant but his Chinese opponent, roared on by the Wimbledon crowd, fought back to win the second set.
But, in the end, Djokovic’s superiority showed and he went onto win the final two sets 6-4, 6-4 to seal his place in the second round.
Speaking afterwards, the 24-time major champion said: ‘Obviously it’s better when you win in the end. It’s not the first time that I’m showing and talking about the significance of Wimbledon in my career and my life.
‘It felt really challenging today, Wu deserves a round of applause for his incredible performance. As for how I’m feeling, I’m feeling happy but not the freshest I guess. It didn’t feel like the first round to be honest.
‘It felt like we played two different matches; one with the open roof and the closed roof. It affects the conditions and the moisture of the grass it becomes more slippery so, you kind of have to adjust and adapt to that but it’s not easy because once you’re in the point you want to give your best.
‘He put me under a lot of pressure. I’ve never faced him before; I knew that he loves hitting the ball very flat and very aggressively from the back of the court and he loves protecting the line.
‘But he definitely surprised me with the level of every shot he had in his game from his return serves, forehand, backhand and at some point he didn’t really have a weakness.’
