He’s being interviewed about winning the Wimbledon men’s tennis final. The interviewer licks her dry lips and asks what it’s like to be a hometown hero, but he bats it away quickly with the fact he only lived in Wimbledon for six months during the 2020 Covid pandemic before moving away. “I couldn’t tell you what it was like,” he says, “but apparently I used to sit in my high chair at the window and watch the buses go by”. The interviewer smiles at his Manchester accent and asks who is responsible for his success. He takes a bite out of a plain Dairy Milk chocolate bar and thinks about his mum.

Carl Burkitt 2025