Princess Charlotte watching men’s singles final from Royal Box for first time

Princess Charlotte has taken her seat in the Royal Box in Wimbledon’s Centre Court for the first time to watch Novak Djokovic try to win a record-equalling eighth Wimbledon title. She sat next to Prince George and together with the Prince and Princess of Wales to see the Serb play Spanish world number one Carlos Alcaraz , 20. Wearing a blue dress, she held Kate’s hand and walked ahead of George and William to reach the Players’ Lawn upon arriving at SW19 around noon, and greeted Wimbledon staff, police dog Stella and British wheelchair doubles’ champion Gordon Reid. In the Player’s Lawn, Kate told Ella Ottaway, who runs the All England Club’s young people programme, that Prince Louis was ‘very upset’ that he was not attending. The princess said: ‘It’s Charlotte’s first time, George came last year. They’ve been eagerly watching. ‘Charlotte you’ve been getting to grips with the scoring. ‘Louis was very upset he wasn’t coming today.’ The princess also told 16-year-old ball boy Joel that Louis has been practising being a ball boy. After their conversation, Joel told the PA news agency: ‘He (Louis) tries to practise the standing and staying serious like us. ‘He tries to practise the stands and how we stand at the back of the court and next to the players.’ Charlotte petted Stella the springer spaniel, who searched Centre Court on Sunday morning on her last day at Wimbledon before retiring. The young princess was also introduced to eight-year-old Mu’awwiz Anwar who is representing the charity WaterAid and who performed the coin toss at the match. Sunday marks Kate’s third visit to Wimbledon, this time wearing a green dress by Roland Mouret, over the course of this year’s tournament. The princess attended on Saturday and consoled a tearful Ons Jabeur after the Tunisian lost the ladies’ singles final against Czech player Marketa Vondrousova. Asked in a press conference what the princess said to her, Jabeur said: ‘Same thing after last year, to encourage me to be strong, to come back and win a grand slam, win a Wimbledon. ‘Obviously she was very nice. ‘She didn’t know if she wants to give me a hug or not. ‘I told her hugs are always welcome from me. ‘That was a very nice moment and she’s always nice to me.’ And Kate had a rain-hit visit on the tournament’s second day when she took shelter under an umbrella on Court 18 while watching British number one Katie Boulter. Thousands of people queued for the final day of the tournament after it was closed on Saturday following weather warnings. Graeme Durno, 61, was the first person in the queue. The tennis fan, from Aberdeen, has come to Wimbledon 12 years in a row and plans to watch the action on Centre Court. He said: ‘I want to see a game. I love atmosphere. To me it’s not about who’s playing but obviously I loved it when Murray won it. I absolutely loved it. ‘I waited years for a person from Britain to win the men’s singles so it would be lovely to see some of the wheelchair Brits do the same. ‘We saw Andy Murray years ago. You would not have thought for a second he would make it into Wimbledon, let alone win the thing twice.’ Nikki Tate, 50, and Tina Cooke, 53, flew over from Northern Ireland to watch the final. The pair, dressed in tennis ball-themed earrings and hats were sixth and seventh in the queue on the final day of the tournament and were visiting Wimbledon for the first time. Ms Cooke said: ‘It’s part of Nikki’s 50th birthday celebrations. We have got the earrings to match. I have had a bad hair day because we were camping last night.’ Ms Tate has placed a £2.50 bet on Carlos Alcaraz to beat Novak Djokovic in the men’s singles final. Jeff Hughes, wearing an Andy Murray t-shirt to mark 10 years since he won Wimbledon, has been camping outside the tournament since it began. The 64-year-old from Chester has been going in to watch the tennis at Wimbledon every day and said the camping ‘catches up with you in the end’. Speaking from the queue Mr Hughes said: ‘I was in Friday and got soaked in the resale, obviously there was no tennis yesterday so I may just chill out all day today. ‘The first week was wet. We had a particularly bad day on Tuesday but on the whole I’m used to it now. ‘I go in every day. Mainly in the first week (I get) ground passes because there is so much great tennis on the outside courts. ‘I don’t want (Novak Djokovic) to win, put it that way.’