Novak Djokovic belatedly reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals after sharpening off Hubert Hurkacz on Monday.
The seven-time champion’s plans for a day without work have been scuppered by the strict 11 pm (2300 GMT) curfew, which means the match was halted on Sunday night with Djokovic two units to the great.
Upon returning to Centre Court, Djokovic was inconvenienced additional when Polish seventeenth seed Hurkacz stole the third set.
But the 36-year-old hit again to register a 7-6 (6) 7-6 (6) 5-7 6-4 victory and e book a 14th quarter-final on the Championships.
He stated: “Big credit for Hubert for playing an amazing match, tough luck for him. he put up a great performance.
“Honestly, I do not recall the final time I felt this depressing on returning video games, because of his extremely correct and highly effective serve.
“He’s got one of the best serves in the world and it’s so difficult to read it. Playing on the quickest surface it really favours the big servers so it was not really an enjoyable match for me.
“But I assume within the necessary moments final evening I used to be lucky to win the primary set. This match might positively have gone a unique method however I held my nerve and I’m completely satisfied to win.”
Djokovic had not faced so much as a break point in his previous 53 service games, so a third tie-break seemed inevitable until Hurkacz forced two at 6-5 and the Serbian dumped the second into the net.
Hurkacz fended off two break points – the first he had faced since the second set, some 17 hours ago – at 3-3 in the fourth but when he slipped on the baseline at deuce, Djokovic converted the third.
It was the first time Hurkacz had dropped serve at these Championships and it proved enough to see the 23-time grand slam champion through to a meeting with Russian seventh seed Andrey Rublev in the last eight.
“He’s a unique participant to Hurkacz, for certain,” added Djokovic. “He’s obtained very highly effective, fast groundstrokes, stays near the road and has top-of-the-line forehands within the recreation, likes to dictate… I’m not going to speak an excessive amount of about ways.
“I have to be ready. The matches are only going to get harder. It’s tough to say it’s going to get harder than what I experienced yesterday and today, but I have to be ready for that.
“Rublev has been a top-10 participant for a few years and he is searching for his first semi-finals at a grand slam. Hopefully it is not gonna occur.”
Source: www.anews.com.tr
