Spider crawls onto camera, crashes Wimbledon broadcast

You truly never know what you’re going to get in sports these days, especially with the combination of the internet and social media. That’s part of the fun of it. Forrest Gump once said, “My mama always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.'” It’s one of the most memorable movie quotes from the classic movie, Forrest Gump, that you can apply to so many different areas of life. On Wednesday afternoon during ESPN’s Wimbledon coverage, tennis fans got to view a rare occurrence.

A spider decided to crawl across the screen in the middle of the live broadcast, which caused the announcers to chat about it a bit.

Check it out below and you’ll see the spider at 0:30 into the clip.

A spider appeared on one of the cameras on ESPN Wimbledon coverage today, starting around 0:30 below. "Spidey liked that one!" "Yeah, he's hanging. Maybe he's going to go get the wasp." pic.twitter.com/ncGc5REuy0

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 5, 2023

Come to think of it, it’s kind of surprising this doesn’t happen more often with so many cameras outside in sporting events. But it’s a pretty rare occasion that we see a spider come across the screen during a live event. It was probably more of an annoyance to most viewers than anything else, but it was very brief.

The spider came on the screen during the match between Japan’s Shintaro Mochizuki and Tommy Paul of USA. Paul ended up winning the match in three straight sets, 7-5, 6-3, 6-1. It was nice of the spider to add some excitement to the broadcast on Wednesday.

There are plenty of rules and special traditions at the All England Lawn and Tennis and Croquet Club. Players have to wear all white. It’s one of the most well-known traditions of the club. It’s basically like the tennis version of Augusta National. Wimbledon is known as sacred ground and it’s a very special tournament with special rules for the players to follow. Their grass courts look pretty amazing to play on.

Novak Djokovic is once again the heavy favorite to win Wimbledon

Novak Djokovic has already cemented his legacy as one of the greatest tennis players of all-time. He’s already won 23 Grand Slam titles–the most major titles ever won by a man in the Open Era. Djokovic is only one of eight players to win the Career Grand Slam in men’s singles. He’s the only male player in the history of tennis to win each major three times and the only male player to win all four major titles on three different surfaces (hard, clay, and grass).

Djokovic’s dominance at Wimbledon has been nearly flawless the past 11 years. He currently has seven titles at Wimbledon and with a win this year, he can tie Roger Federer for the most all-time. Of course, Djokovic is the heavy, heavy favorite to bring home his 8th Wimbledon crown this year and his 24th grand slam of all-time. Quite frankly, it’d be shocking if he didn’t.