LOndon: Novak Djokovic reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the 16th time but it proved a hard day’s work at his Centre Court office as he ground past Australian Alex de Minaur on Monday.
The 38-year-old Serb started abysmally and lost the opening set in 31 minutes but eventually gained control of a cagey battle to win 1-6 6-4 6-4 6-4 to keep alive his quest for a 25th Grand Slam title.
The hustling and bustling De Minaur continued to cause Djokovic headaches after that but the sixth seed found his range to win the next two sets full of attritional baseline rallies.
Even then Djokovic looked like getting dragged into a fifth set as De Minaur jumped into a 4-1 lead in the fourth set but the Serb slammed the door shut just in time, winning five games in a row to take his place in the last-eight.
Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic reached her first Wimbledon quarterfinal in nine attempts on Monday, dismissing 18th-seeded Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-6(4) 6-4 in just under two hours on a breezy Court One.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics champion, 28, shed tears after she finally broke the fourth-round barrier 15 months after giving birth to her daughter Bella and said she felt very proud of herself.
On Sunday, women’s top seed Aryna Sabalenka and men’s defending champion Carlos Alcaraz both survived tough tests to reach the quarterfinals and Cameron Norrie kept alive British singles hopes after surviving a five-set thriller on Sunday.
Sabalenka ruined home favourite Emma Raducanu’s dream in the previous round but had the Centre Court crowd cheering her on as she beat Elise Mertens 6-4 7-6(4) in a high-quality duel.