Thursday 25 / April / 2024
London: Andy Murray recorded a solid and largely straightforward 6-3, 7-5, 6-2 victory over Australian John Millman on Saturday to reach the second week of Wimbledon where he will find himself in the unusual position of being the highest seed left in the draw.
One of the partisan crowd's biggest cheers during his third-round win over the 67th-ranked Millman greeted the news that world number one Novak Djokavic had been beaten by Sam Querrey on Court One.
Murray lost to Djokovic in both the Australian and French Open finals this year and his composure faltered immediately after the news filtered through during the second set by dropping his serve.
The British 2013 Wimbledon champion got quickly back into his stride, however, and after he broke serve in a lengthy 11th game, he ran away with the match.
"It was a good match...there were a lot of long rallies," he said as he came off court.
"John moves well and he really makes you earn it. I had to be a little more patient today."
Murray played down the significance of Djokovic's loss.
"I need to reach the final for that result to have any bearing whatsoever on my performance," he said.
"I have very tough guys left in my half of the draw."
Djokovic exits
Novak Djokovic is fallible after all, as American powerhouse Sam Querrey proved in stunning fashion to stop the Serb's seemingly unstoppable charge towards a calendar year grand slam on Saturday.
The 28th seed boomed down 31 aces and repelled an attempted Djokovic comeback to win a third-round match that began the previous evening 7-6(6), 6-1, 3-6, 7-6(5).
Top seed and defending champion Djokovic had trailed by two sets overnight after the Court One clash was stopped by rain on Friday.
On the resumption, the Serb halved the deficit and served for the fourth set at 5-4, only for Querrey to break back.
When yet another rain delay sent the players off court for an hour, Djokovic returned to hold serve but he never looked comfortable in the tiebreak as Querrey went 6-4 ahead.
One match point was saved but Djokovic shanked a forehand into the tramlines to end his 30-match winning streak in grand slam play -- a run that meant he arrived at Wimbledon holding all four major titles.
Defeat scuppered his hopes of becoming the first man to win all four majors in a year since Rod Laver in 1969 and was his first loss before the quarter-final of a major since the 2009 French Open when he also bowed out in the third round.
"His game was brutal today, especially his serve," the 12-times grand slam champion told reporters. "Well done to Sam, he overpowered me today."
Querrey showed great composure, saving 11 out of 12 break points in the fourth set, several with aces, as Djokovic tried everything to take the match into a deciding set.
It looked as though the pressure had told when he dropped serve in the ninth game, but he hit back immediately as Djokovic scooped a low volley into the net.
The rain returned, but it could not douse Querrey's fighting spirit and he completed his first victory over a current world number one.
"It's incredible, especially to do it at Wimbledon, the biggest tournament in the world," he said.
"I am so ecstatic right now, so happy and that's about it."
"I think that today I played the break points really well. Every time he had a break point I was able to come up with a big serve. And in the end I just fought the tiebreak and got a couple of loose errors and that was it."
Kvitova stunned
Twice champion Petra Kvitova bowed out in the second round on Saturday, losing a two-hour slugfest 7-5, 7-6 (5) to unseeded Ekaterina Makarova after a far longer battle against the weather.
The rain-delayed clash between the Czech 10th seed, the title winner in 2011 and 2014, and her Russian opponent was the final match of the round.
"I felt stuck in the second round for a while. I think that the tournament was really weird for me this time," Kvitova told reporters.
"I was waiting all day long almost every day to be scheduled on, and didn't really have a chance to finish or step on the court."
When play was finally possible, blustery conditions contributed to a relatively high error count by both women -- Kvitova serving five double faults and Makarova six.
Makarova, a quarterfinalist in 2014 and beaten by Kvitova in the third round in 2013, broke in the 11th game of the first set and held serve to take the set, the Czech missing two chances to break back.
After an exchange of breaks early in the second set, the Russian sealed the win in the tiebreak on a forehand error by Kvitova.
Zverev wins
As the last man through the door, German teenager Alexander Zverev finally reached Wimbledon's third round on Saturday after multiple rain breaks — and had a message for organisers and the sporting great already sitting pretty a further round ahead.
Seeded 24th, Zverev battled past Russian dangerman Mikhail Youzhny, but it took him three hours and 19 minutes of court time to close out the final second-round match in the draw 6-4, 3-6, 6-0, 3-6, 6-2.
The last five games were played on Saturday, the day after third seed Roger Federer sealed his place in the fourth round with a straight-sets win over Briton Dan Evans.
The match was Federer's third in a row under on Centre Court in what has been a rain-ravaged tournament.
Asked if putting Federer's match under the roof was fair at a time when he had yet to complete the previous round, Zverev told reporters: "He's a seven-time champion here. I can't complain about it."
For 19-year-old Zverev, meanwhile, the circumstances are less ideal.
"It was difficult. I warmed up about eight times (for the Youzhny match) ... I have to play tomorrow now. It's not an easy schedule," said the German.
Good omen for Halep
The omens were starting to look rather promising for Simona Halep as she skipped into the Wimbledon fourth round with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Dutch dangerwoman Kiki Bertens on Saturday.
The only other time the Romanian fifth seed had strung together three successive victories at the All England Club, she made it all the way to the semi-finals in 2014.
She was also spared the torment of running on and off court on yet another showery day at this year's championships because her showdown with Bertens, originally scheduled on Court Two on Friday, ended up being contested under the Centre Court roof.
"I'm really excited that I'll play the fourth round, it's one of my special grand slams," said Halep, whose French Open challenge fizzled out five weeks ago after she was forced to play her fourth round match in misty rain.
"It was amazing today, I played good tennis and I'm happy I could win in two sets. I felt every ball. I felt my legs. The court was very safe and I really liked that the court was indoors."
Bertens had all the credentials to create an upset following her run to the semifinals of the French Open, which included a first-round win over Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber.
Nishikori to face Cilic
With minimum fuss Japan's Kei Nishikori brushed past Andrey Kuznetsov 7-5, 6-3, 7-5 on Saturday to advance to a fourth-round showdown with Marin Cilic.
The fifth seed won to the delight of a patient contingent of Japanese fans who had sat wrapped up against the drizzle on Court Three through a lengthy break between the second and third sets.
Nishikori next meets ninth seed Cilic who beat him in the 2014 U.S. Open final. Although Cilic dashed his hopes of a first Asian men's grand slam title, Nishikori has a 7-3 advantage over the tall Croatian in head-to-heads.
Lofty Croatian Marin Cilic made short work of Slovak qualifier Lukas Lacko on Saturday, finishing their rain delayed third round match 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 with nine aces in the final set
Bacsinszky plots her way
Swiss 11th seed Timea Bacsinszky roared her way into the third round on Saturday after waking up admitting she had no idea where she was.
Bacsinszky has suffered more than most from the incessant rain delays that have plagued the tournament and had an early-morning appointment to finish off her delayed second-round match against Monica Niculescu.
She had shared the opening two sets with her Romanian opponent on Friday and was 1-0 down in the decider when the rains returned to wash out play.
But after being told by her coach to play like a lion, she reeled off six games in a row on Saturday to set up a third-round clash with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia.
