'Football's everywhere'

The second Monday of Wimbledon, which follows a break from tennis on the middle Sunday, is popularly known as 'Manic Monday' but this year the mania has little to do with tennis.

The football World Cup has dominated all discussion and television sets even in the Wimbledon dressing rooms, and now that England made it to the semifinals with their quarterfinal win over Sweden, the football craze will only ratchet up.

"Yeah of course it's on everywhere, everybody is singing, 'It's coming home, it's coming home'," three-time winner Novak Djokovic told the BBC after his third-round win over England's Kyle Edmund, a match that started soon after the country's win in Samara.

"It's quite a big event, of course everybody follows football. Football is the most popular sport on the planet. England got to the semifinals so we could not miss that. It was on the TVs all over when we were in the warm-up area.

"I was glad that everybody was smiling. All the volunteers, all the people who were working, everybody was quite tense with 15 minutes to go and then I could feel relief."

Edmund's coach Mark Hilton had suggested the British number one not watch the quarterfinal to avoid emotional turmoil before his match, but with Swedish coach Fredrik Rosengren also in his camp, there was little chance of that happening.

"No that didn't happen; I watched," Edmund said. "The first goal I didn't actually see, I was getting my food, we were trying to stream it and it just wasn't happening. So we went downstairs to the physio rooms to get warmed up and keep an eye on it.

"[Dele] Alli scored the header, me and Hilts [Hilton] my coach were obviously loving it, Fidde [Rosengren] wasn't loving it. But he said, 'Oh, [England were] too good'.

"That's what everyone says, it's coming home," Edmund said of the team's chances.

American Serena Williams, the favourite to win the women's singles crown, also remarked on the mood in the capital, writing on Twitter: "I've spent a lot of summer weekends in London in my life but something feels different about this one!", in a message accompanied by three lion emojis.