The All England Club hosts the Wimbledon Championships every year in the month of July. Like almost all of the previous editions, this year has proved to be another amazing one.
With the tournament now its business end, the host of attraction for Friday evening, before the finals, was the Ladies' Invitational Double's Tournament, one of the three Invitational matches which are played on the lush green grass courts of Wimbledon. They serve as an exhibition match for fans to come and witness retired tennis legends take to the court again.
Former World Number 1, Kim Clijsters, in her Invitational Ladies Double's Match was having fun interacting with the crowd. She was asking her Australian partner, Rennae Stubbs where she should place her serve - wide or down or middle.
At the same time, her opponents Conchita Martinez (the coach of Wimbledon 2017 Champion Garbine Muguruza) and Andrea Jaeger looked on unsuspiciously when the events suddenly took a hilarious turn.
A certain fan from the crowd kept offering suggestions to the four-time major champion. He simply said "body," referring to the body serve which is aimed right at the opponent trying to close in on them.
Clijsters was clearly amused. Chuckling, she replied, "You said body? Why don't you go there?!" asking him to join her on the other side of the net. The crowd erupted with a thunderous applause. The fact, that Clijsters didn’t mind the cheeky comments and instead asked him to come on the court, says enough about the 3-time US Open Champion’s forgiving personality.
The man was all too ready to come down to the court and apparently wanted to teach the former World Number 1 how to tackle the body serve. However, a different problem came up once he came down on the court. The man was dressed in a rather baggy Green Lantern T-shirt and blue Nike shorts which went against the all-white dress code which Wimbledon has been known to religiously follow.
Clijsters immediately rushed to get a spare skirt from her kit-bag and a zip-up jacket for him to wear. The crowd went into splits when they saw Clijsters trying to pull the skirt up the man’s ample girth of a waist. Unable to do so, Clijsters rolled on the grass court laughing while the man jostled up the white skirt upto his waist, donned a white jacket and got Wimbledon-ready to tackle Clijsters serve.
The 34-year old champion doubled over in laughter as she got ready to serve to the man. Kim, laughing with tears in her eyes, served to the man who swiftly returned the serve and it somehow managed to cross the net. The commentator was equally baffled and remarked how ‘a man in a skirt’ was trying to return the Clijsters serve.
The enthusiastic fan asked for another serve but this time he missed the net volley and handed Clijsters the game.
The man later tweeted thanking Clijsters.
