Djokovic wins; another upset in women’s singles at Wimbledon
WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — Novak Djokovic put his game into another gear to beat both an unexpectedly tough opponent and a pending curfew at the All England Club.
The six-time champion reached his 13th Wimbledon quarterfinal by defeating Dutch wild-card entry Tim van Rijthoven 6-2, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 on Centre Court.
When Van Rijthoven surprisingly won a 50-minute second set it looked like the match might not finish before Wimbledon’s 11 p.m. curfew.
But Djokovic sped through the next two sets to wrap up the win with about 20 minutes to spare and ensure he gets a full rest day on Monday. Djokovic is the three-time defending champion. He took his Wimbledon winning streak to 25 matches.
Tatjana Maria pulled off another upset at Wimbledon to reach her first Grand Slam quarterfinal at the age of 34 on Sunday.
She’ll face not another high-seeded opponent but 22-year-old Jule Niemeier, who is making her All England Club debut, in an all-German showdown for a place in the semifinals.
Heading into the second week at Wimbledon, only two of the top 15 seeds remain in the women’s draw, which has just one Grand Slam champion — Simona Halep — left.
Maria eliminated 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko 5-7, 7-5, 7-5 on No. 1 Court in the fourth round after saving two match points in the second set against her 12th-seeded opponent.
“I always believed that at one point I can show what I can do,” said the 103rd-ranked Maria, who ousted fourth-seeded Maria Sakkari in the third round. “I’m happy that today, I mean, I came back when I was down, so I’m proud of myself.”
Top-ranked Iga Swiatek is also out of the picture, the two-time French Open champion having lost to Alize Cornet of France in straight sets on Saturday.
Halep is the last Grand Slam champion standing on the women’s side. The 16th-seeded Romanian won at Wimbledon in 2019 and at the French Open the year before that. She faces fourth-seeded Paula Badosa in the fourth round on Monday.
The 97th-ranked Niemeier advanced by beating Heather Watson 6-2, 6-4 on Centre Court in just her second Grand Slam tournament. The German had eliminated second-seeded Anett Kontaveit in the second round.
Shortly before Roger Federer and other greats took part in a ceremony marking the centenary of Centre Court, Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal by beating Caroline Garcia of France 7-5, 6-2 as the traditional day of rest on the middle Sunday at the All England Club is no more.
The 23-year-old Bouzkova will next face either third-seeded Ons Jabeur or Elise Mertens for a place in the last four.
“There’s no reason why not to keep this going. Kind of believing in myself right now,” said Bouzkova, who withdrew from the French Open after testing positive for COVID-19. “Yeah, I just going to go all out again in the quarterfinals.”
In the men’s draw, two Americans were eliminated. David Goffin of Belgium defeated 23rd-seeded Frances Tiafoe 7-6 (3), 5-7, 5-7, 6-4, 7-5 to set up a quarterfinal match against ninth-seeded Cameron Norrie, who advanced with a 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 victory over Tommy Paul.
Maria, the oldest woman left in the singles draw, said she’s been inspired by her two young daughters.
“I’m now in the quarterfinal of Wimbledon, so it’s really amazing for me,” she said. “This means also that you always have to keep going. Doesn’t matter how old you are, doesn’t matter how many kids you have, you just have to keep going and to believe in yourself.”
Venus Williams and Jamie Murray are out of the mixed doubles at Wimbledon after failing to convert five match points in a marathon third-set tiebreaker against British duo Jonny O’Mara and Alicia Barnett.
O’Mara and Barnett converted the fifth match point of their own when Murray netted a backhand to win the second-round match 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (16) on No. 2 Court.
The 42-year-old Williams, a seven-time Grand Slam singles champion, was playing her first tournament in any tennis discipline in more than 10 months. American duo Coco Gauff and Jack Sock advanced to the third round by beating Nicolas Mahut and Zhang Shuai 6-4, 7-6 (3).
Stefanos Tsitsipas was fined $10,000 by the All England Club, and Nick Kyrgios was docked $4,000 for actions during their wild third-round match.
The tournament announced the penalties on Sunday, a day after Kyrgios beat Tsitsipas in four sets. Things got testy during the match — and there was more dislike for each other expressed during their news conferences.
Tsitsipas’ fine was for unsportsmanlike conduct; he twice was warned by chair umpire Damien Dumusois for ball abuse. Two such code violations automatically result in losing a point.
Kyrgios lost money after Dumusois cited him for an audible obscenity. This was Kyrgios’ second fine of the tournament. He was penalized $10,000 for spitting in the direction of a spectator he said was heckling him during a first-round victory.
Through the first six days of main-draw competition at the All England Club, official attendance was listed as 237,927. That is a decrease of 7% from the Week 1 total at the last pre-pandemic edition of the tournament in 2019, which was 256,808.
