One thing was clear from the start - the tennis shirt with the conspicuous black spots that he always wore was out of the question for Wimbledon.

Over the years, sportswear regulations at the All England Championships have tightened rather than being relaxed, and the current version, 'almost entirely white', leaves little room for manoeuvre.

"Grubenhelden" is the name of the small company from the Ruhr area, whose products Oscar Otte has been wearing at work since the beginning of the year, and he basically likes its concept of visually reminiscent of dirt and hard work.

Although, as a native and committed Cologne native, it took him some time to feel at home in Essen, he now feels at home there too.

When he recently reached the semi-finals at the grass tournament in Halle/Westphalia, he wore white with charcoal spots, but of course that was only a side issue.

Of lasting value, however, was the fact that with this success he made it into the top 50 in the world rankings for the first time in his career and thus fulfilled a wish from his childhood days.

Warm words from Andy Murray

Little Oscar was eleven years old when he was sitting on the floor in a tennis hall and was asked in a short interview what he was up to.

“I want to be a tennis pro and I want to be in the top 50 in the world rankings.

That would be a nice wish.” Should he have been told at the time that he would need a lot of patience and perseverance?

The hard way from wish to reality took 17 years;

Otte is now in 37th place, making him the second best German after Alexander Zverev, and during his injury break he is his country's best man at Wimbledon.

For years he had played in Challenger tournaments with varying success.

He only became known to the wider public last year at the comparatively mature age of 27, when he qualified for the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time at the French Open.

A few weeks later, at Wimbledon, he followed up in a highly engaging and spectacular five-set performance against Andy Murray.

Who knows how things would have turned out on Center Court back then if play hadn't been stopped early in the fourth set due to the roof closing;

at a time when Otte was in the lead and the Scot was visibly annoyed.

In the short break, Murray found time to calm down and refocus, but he was clearly impressed by the performance of opponents who weren't among the top 150 players on the leaderboard at the time.

Shaking hands at the net, he let Oscar Otte know: "Keep working as before, keep playing, then the results will come."

"That's really cool"

That's exactly what happened.

At the US Open, the man from Cologne ended up in the round of 16, at the beginning of the new year he appeared in the top 100 for the first time during the Australian tennis summer, and at the beginning of the grass season his childhood dream came true after appearances in the semi-finals in Stuttgart and Halle .

And because there were a few cancellations shortly before the start of the championships, Otte even slipped onto the list of 32 seeded players.

In fact, he says, it doesn't make much of a difference, every lap is difficult.

But he likes the changed general conditions quite well.

The seeded players have access to a different changing room than the rest, which resembles a beautiful living room rather than a austere collection of sports lockers.

At first he had no idea that such a thing even existed, but he was happy to adapt to the new environment.

"Everything is definitely much more private, larger and more comfortable," says Oscar Otte.

"Fewer people.

That's really cool."

The sports bag is missing

On the day of his first game with breaks in the rain and longer waiting times, he benefited from the convenience of being upgraded to the next higher class, and he later rushed through the game with concentration – 6:1, 6:2, 6:1 in less than 80 minutes against his Munich colleague Peter Gojowczyk.

And the thing with the shoes was not a problem either.

The sports bag with five pairs of grass shoes and a roll of strings, which Otte had checked in for the flight to England, followed many bags that are disappearing somewhere in global air traffic these days and has not been seen since.

Luckily, a replacement arrived in time, so he doesn't have to go barefoot or in borrowed shoes.

The only thing that cannot be replaced is the lucky stone that was in the bag with the tennis shoes and the strings.

He got it from his father once, but luck alone isn't of much use in this business.

Somehow it's more about the labor;

even in those whose talent reaches from earth to heaven and back again.