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Three-time Wimbledon champion and lifelong Liverpool fan Neal Skupski suffered a double heartbreak as he learned that his grandmother had passed away on the same day Reds striker Diogo Jota was killed in a car crash.
The 35-year-old, who has won both the men’s and mixed doubles titles, was given the crushing news that his 98-year-old nan Mary had died as he came off Court 8 following their three-set first-round victory with Joe Salisbury.
‘It’s been a tough day,’ said Skupski. ‘I found out this morning that Jota had passed away and then I just found out my nan had passed today as well, so it’s been a very tough day.
‘She was a fighter. She’d been ill for a little bit of time but it’s just a tough time, obviously, in middle of Wimbledon. She’d have been proud of me for what happened today, us fighting through.’
Skupski, who gets told Liverpool scores when he’s on court and gets up at 3am to watch matches if he’s on the other side of the world, said he found out on Thursday morning on social media about Jota’s death as the news of his crash broke on Spanish media.
‘It was a bit strange,’ he added. ‘You look at it, you're on Twitter (now X), and you see something like a headline about Jota in Spanish, and you don’t know what it was, but it's along the lines of “accident” and it's in black and white. So it was like, has he actually really died?
Neal Skupski suffered a double heartbreak, with his 98-year-old nan Mary passing away
Skupski's grandmother died on the same day that Liverpool star Diogo Jota passed away
Skupski stated that he would consider wearing a black armband in the coming days
‘You always think your heroes or sportspeople you look up to are invincible but it just shows that everyone is human and things come at you, you don’t know what’s around the corner.’
Wimbledon will relax their strict all-white dress code to allow players to wear black armbands in respects to Jota.
Skupski brought one with him and considered wearing it but decided against it.
‘I had one today, I thought of wearing it but I thought maybe not, I didn’t think it was…with my nan…I didn’t want to wear it but it the coming days I might.’
Portuguese doubles player Franciso Cabral, who grew up in the same city as Jota in Porto and had mutual acquaintances, will wear a black armband when he plays his next game.
‘He's such an idol, such an icon, such a good person,’ said Cabral.
Skupski has previously visited Liverpool’s training ground to meet the team and played padel with former manager Jurgen Klopp.
‘I've spoke to some people today who are connected to Liverpool and they say Diogo was not just an amazing footballer but an incredible person, so down to earth, someone that kept the whole dressing room together. He’s going to be a big loss for Liverpool.’
