July 7 (UPI) — Novak Djokovic struggled to combat Alex de Minaur’s quickness early on before adjusting to overcome a sluggish start and beat the Australian to reach his 16th Wimbledon quarterfinal Monday in London.
“I’m still trying to process the whole match and what happened on the court,” Djokovic said on the ESPN broadcast. “It wasn’t a great start for me. It was a great start for him obviously.”
Djokovic held a 6-1 advantage in aces and 38-29 edge in winners. De Minaur, the No. 11 player in the world, broke the Serbian three times in the opening set to storm ahead 6-1.
Djokovic totaled 16 unforced errors in the opening set, compared to just five from de Minaur, while batting swirling winds and de Minaur’s rapid reactions.
Djokovic, ranked No. 6, responded with a dominant second set. He converted all three of his break point chances and fired three aces to even the match. He fired another three aces and broke de Minaur again in the third set to snatch momentum.
The Serbian broke the Australian two more times in the fourth set to close out the 3-hour, 19-minute match.
“He was just managing better the play from the back of the court,” Djokovic said. “I didn’t have many solutions to be honest, but I kinda of reset myself in the second set.”
Djokovic will meet No. 24 Flavio Cobolli of Italy in the quarterfinals. Cobolli beat No. 83 Marin Cilic of Croatia 6-4, 6-4, 6-7(4), 7-6(3) in his fourth-round match.
No. 10 Ben Shelton of the United States also advanced Monday with a four-set victory over No. 47 Lorenzo Sonego of Italy.
With three more wins, Djokovic can tie tennis legend Roger Federer for the most Wimbledon singles titles (eight) of any men’s player.
The winner of the Djokovic-Cobolli quarterfinal will face No. 1 Jannik Sinner of Italy, Shelton or No. 21 Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria in the semifinals.
No. 7 Mirra Andreeva of Russia beat No. 10 Emma Navarro of the United States in a women’s Round of 16 match Monday in London. No. 35 Belinda Bencic of Switzerland beat No. 17 Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia in another fourth-round meeting.
No. 19 Liudmila Samsonova of Russia also advanced.
No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus will face No. 104 Laura Siegmund of Germany in the first of two women”s quarterfinals Tuesday at the All-England Lawn Tennis Club. No. 12 Amanda Anisimova of the United States will take on No. 50 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia in the other quarterfinal.
No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz of Spain will take on No. 61 Cameron Norrie of the United Kingdom in one of two men’s singles quarterfinals on Day 8 of the grass-court Grand Slam. No. 5 Taylor Fritz of the United States will battle No. 20 Karen Khachanov of Russia in Tuesday’s other men’s singles quarterfinal.
Quarterfinal coverage will air from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. EDT Tuesday on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN+.
