At wet Wimbledon, Murray, Djokovic near rematch
LONDON, England (AP) — As the rain at Wimbledon wreaks havoc with the schedule, and players start to complain, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have found little reason to worry about the weather.
It helped that both got to play yesterday on Centre Court, the only spot at the All England Club with a retractable roof.
And with back-to-back, straight-set victories, they moved closer to a semi-final showdown that would be a rematch of the final last year, when Murray beat Djokovic to become the first British man since 1936 to win Wimbledon.
“Sometimes the scheduling works in your favour. Sometimes the weather works in your favour,” Murray said. “You just have to deal with it.”
He reached the quarter-finals for the seventh consecutive year by dulling the dangerous serve of 20th-seeded Kevin Anderson and saving a set point in the tiebreaker of a 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (6) win. They played under a drizzle for about 15 minutes before the roof was closed early in the second set.
It stayed that way for the top-seeded Djokovic, and the 2011 champion beat number 14 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga for the 11th consecutive time, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (5). Djokovic grimaced once in the final set while clutching the upper left arm he landed on in his prior match, but finished strongly and said afterward he felt fine.
“A lot of matches were cancelled, but that’s London, that’s Wimbledon, with its very unpredictable weather,” Djokovic said.
Murray, who hasn’t dropped a set, said: “They should always try to play with the roof open, because it’s an outdoor event.”
Easy for him to say.
Australian Open champion Stan Wawrinka was less than pleased that his third-round match was put off from Saturday to yesterday. He got through it quickly, defeating 45th-ranked Denis Istomin 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 in less than 1 1/2 hours.
Afterward, the fifth-seeded Wawrinka noted it won’t be easy to win five best-of-five-set matches in a week if he’s going to claim the title.
“For sure, I was disappointed,” Wawrinka said about not getting on court Saturday, when showers disrupted play for several hours. “You cannot do anything. You have to accept (it). They do what they want, and you just follow.”
All England Club spokesman Johnny Perkins said that officials met with Wawrinka’s coach Saturday to explain their decision-making, which makes putting past Grand Slam champions on larger courts more of a priority than getting all matches completed on a given day.
Wawrinka will be on Number Two Court today — when, by the way, the forecast calls for a slight chance of rain — against number 19 Feliciano Lopez, who eliminated the last American singles player, number nine John Isner, 6-7 (8), 7-6 (6), 7-6 (3), 7-5. It’s the first time in 103 years that no US men or women reached the round of 16 at Wimbledon.
Maria Sharapova never got a chance to play at all yesterday, because her fourth-rounder against number nine Angelique Kerber was postponed. That was rescheduled for today, and the winner must play tomorrow against number 13 Eugenie Bouchard, the first Canadian in the Wimbledon quarter-finals in the 46-year Open era.
Bouchard advanced with a 7-6 (5), 7-5 victory over number 25 Alize Cornet, the Frenchwoman who beat Serena Williams.