After directing a wave to all four sides of the court, as is his wont, Nadal put his hand to his mouth and blew the crowd a kiss. A final farewell to Brisbanites, perhaps? It is too early in his return from a year-long absence with a hip injury to say – and after all the cautious pronouncements he has made this week, we should probably know better than to speculate. 

Yet the sight of Nadal leaving the court for a medical timeout five games into the deciding set of a 5-7, 7-6 (8-6), 6-3 defeat, and just three matches into a season he has suggested could be his last, would have been alarming enough in itself. That the source of concern was the left hip on which he underwent surgery last June will inevitably puncture the sense of optimism surrounding the Spaniard’s comeback prospects.

“I need to see how I wake up tomorrow morning,” said Nadal, who missed three match points in the second set. “I hope it is not important and I hope to have the chance to be practising next week and to play in Melbourne. Honestly, I am not 100% sure of anything now.

“[The injury] is [in] a very similar place to what happened last year, but different stuff, no? I feel it is more the muscle; last year, it was the tendon. I feel the muscle is tired. For sure it is not the same [as] last year at all because, when it happened last year, I felt something drastic immediately. Today, I didn’t feel anything. 

“The only problem is, because the place is the same, you are a little bit more scared than usual.”

Given that the contest raged for three hours and 26 minutes in oppressive humidity, muscular fatigue would certainly seem plausible. As Nadal pointed out, it is impossible to predict how the body will respond to such an intense increase in workload after so long on the sidelines. The impressive wins over Dominic Thiem and Jason Kubler that propelled the 37-year-old into the quarter-finals were both completed inside an hour and a half, so this was by far the most significant test of his physicality to date.

It needn’t have been so. Nadal stood within a point of a straight-sets victory three times in the latter stages of the second set, on each occasion fluffing his lines. Over the course of a career that has brought 22 grand slams, the Spaniard’s overhead has been barely less dependable than his metronomic forehand. Here, though, he netted an angled backhand smash on a first match point at 5-4 in the second set, then sprayed a forehand approach wide at 6-4 in the tiebreak. The final chance came on his own serve, but Thompson found a deep return before forcing an error with a precise forehand.

While Nadal’s injury scare inevitably overshadowed the evening, the brilliance of Thompson’s performance was impossible to overlook. Unbreakable in his previous two matches, Nadal was put under intolerable pressure by the boldness of the Australian’s return game, winning less than half his second serve points as Thompson took the ball on the rise and went bounding forward time and again. Harrying and hustling the Spaniard with his incisive volleying and aggression, Thompson balanced a gambler’s instinct with a dogged willingness to dig in and trade blows from the baseline. The 29-year-old’s obduracy was never more apparent than on the final point, a gruelling 34-shot exchange that finally ended with a Nadal backhand sailing long.

“That was something special,” said Thompson, ranked 43 in the world. “To beat Rafa in Brizzy, at home in a quarter-final – I think it’s my first semi-final on a hard court as well – I couldn’t be happier.”

While Thompson advances to a semi-final against Grigor Dimitrov, Nadal said he would sleep on his injury before undertaking medical tests if required. 

“I need to be open,” said Nadal. “The way I approach everything didn’t change at all. I need to accept everything how it comes. If things happen – if I have one problem there, one problem to the other part of the body – I need to accept.”

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As fans at the gates railed against lengthy bag checks and body searches, ramped up this year amid fears of environmental protests, spectators expecting to watch Novak Djokovic play tennis were instead treated to the singular sight of the defending champion drying the playing surface with a towel.

The chaos arose after officials allowed play to continue between Djokovic and his Argentinian opponent Pedro Cachin, who opened this year’s proceedings on Centre Court, despite light rainfall towards the end of the first set. Renaud Lichtenstein, the chair umpire, insisted play should continue until the set was complete, at which point the court was covered and the roof closed. By then, however, there was enough moisture on the turf to delay play for almost 90 minutes. 

Scenes that we thought had been consigned to history’s dustbin with the addition of a £100m retractable roof played out anew. Gerry Armstrong, the tournament referee, paced the court anxiously alongside various other officials, periodically feeling the grass to see if it was playable. Neil Stubley, the chief groundsman, who spends his working life tending to the grass as though it were a beloved family member, wore a furrowed brow.

Meanwhile, ground staff armed with leaf blowers were applauded on to the court by Djokovic, who broke off from chatting with Dan Bloxham, the club’s head coach, to urge the crowd to blow on the court. That at least brought some mirth to the proceedings, although it didn’t stop sections of the audience becoming restive. “Get on with it!” spectators implored officials.

When play finally resumed, Djokovic went on to complete a 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) victory, his 29th in a row at Wimbledon, where he has won seven of his 23 grand slam titles. Aside from conceding an early break with a double-fault, the Serb was in the driving seat throughout, immediately hitting back to level after that early aberration before moving smoothly through the gears after the rain delay.

“Strange circumstances with the roof being closed, and us delaying the match for almost an hour and a half,” said Djokovic following his first match since the French Open final. 

“It normally takes 10 to 20 minutes when the roof is closed for the air conditioning to do its job and the grass to dry and be ready for play. That was the case with Court One [where Iga Swiatek defeated China’s Zhu Lin]. 

“We saw that players came back after maybe 15 minutes to Court One, and they resumed play. But we didn’t and we couldn’t.

“Both of us players wanted to come out. We did several times, to show to the crowd that we want to play, we want to be there. But it was just too many places on the court which were too slippery and really moist. Touch the grass and your palm is completely wet.”

Djokovic will face Jordan Thompson in round two after the Australian came back from sets to love down to defeat Brandon Nakashima of the US. Taking advantage of the slick conditions, Thompson turned net rusher after falling behind to seal a 2-6, 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 victory.

“I’ve seen a few guys have nightmares out there against him on Centre Court,” said Thompson, ranked 70, of the prospect of facing Djokovic. “Hopefully that won’t be the case for me. I’m going to have to play better than I did in the first two sets today, that’s for sure. 

“I’ve got to believe, as silly as it sounds, that I can win, or else there is no point going out there. I know the odds are firmly against me.”

Andrey Rublev, seeded seventh, marked his return to Wimbledon following last year’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players with a 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 win over another Australian, Max Purcell. Rublev, who made his opposition to the Ukraine war plain last year in Dubai, where he scrawled “No war, please” on a TV camera lens, said afterwards that he felt last summer’s blanket ban was a mistake.

“We were talking, and I think we could find the solution,” said Rublev. “If we really want to help or do what is better for tennis and for the people, I think obviously there were better options. Not just to ban. 

“In the end, was no difference. They did only worse to themselves. So in the end, I think, that there were for sure options to do much better for everyone.”

Casper Ruud, the Norwegian fourth seed, came through 6-1, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 against French qualifier Laurent Lokoli, but Felix Auger-Aliassime was an early casualty, beaten 7-6 (7-4), 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 by Michael Mmoh of the US. It was a first main draw Wimbledon victory for Mmoh, a lucky loser ranked 119 in the world.

“I knew it was going to be tough and it was,” said Auger-Aliassime, who has been struggling with knee tendon injury and pulled out of Halle. “But it’s a grand slam. I wanted to come and give myself a chance.”

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