Wimbledon’s homage to Neymar

Tennis player Jonas Bjorkman seemingly mocked the Brazil superstar Neymar for his theatrics as Jonas Bjorkman started to roll on the floor after being hit by a ball during a doubles tennis match at Wimbledon yesterday.

Brazil ace forward Neymar repeatedly made headlines for his string of exaggerated reactions to fouls during the Selecao’s 2018 World Cup run which ended with a 2-1 defeat against Belgium in the quarterfinals.

With all the expectations of the Brazil fans from around the globe, it was obvious that Neymar would be one of the most talked footballers in this World Cup. Although Neymar scored two goals and provided one assist for Brazil in the tournament, he also consistently made headlines for wrong reasons.

One incident in particular is the one when the Brazil star’s rather dramatic reaction to a Miguel Layun tap on his leg in the Selecao’s 2-0 round-of-16 win over Mexico had drawn most of the attention.

Since that moment his infamous theatrics have been recreated, with the #NeymarChallenge doing the rounds on social media.

The most recent recreation of Neymar-theatrics was at the Wimbledon during a doubles tennis match on Thursday. In a third-round senior doubles match, Bjorkman was struck on the back by a ball hit by his doubles partner Todd Woodbridge.

Bjorkman was fine as he laughed about the incident with his playing partner and the crowd but moments later was seen rolling around the court grabbing his stomach. It seemed like the Swede decided to have some fun by mocking Neymar’s infamous theatrics from the World Cup that had spread like wildfire around the world through social media memes.

One of Bjorkman’s opponents, Mansour Bahrami, then decided to get in on the act, as he climbed over the net and waved for help. Bahrami was then seen giving fake CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Bjorkman as the crowd recognized the act and applauded after bursting into laughter.