Novak Djokovic continues his triumphant march at Wimbledon and this Sunday he achieved his 25th consecutive victory at Wimbledon, heading to the quarterfinals, against Dutchman Tim Van Rijthoven (6-2, 4-6, 6-2).
The Serbian prevailed in the face of the threat that the match would not end this Sunday and would be moved to Monday due to the curfew that prevails in the neighborhood and that forces the tournament to close at 11:00 p.m. local time.
The ceremony for the centenary of the central court, together with the two games that had to be played later, especially the Alcaraz-Sinner, which went on for more than three and a half hours, forced Djokovic to jump onto the court with something less three hours to finish the job.
He had no problem getting it, although more just on time than expected. He did it with 22 minutes to spare. In front of him was a Van Rijthoven invited by the organization for his excellent tour on grass, in which he won the title in s’Hertogenbosch, despite being outside the top 170 in the world. The Dutchman, until February, was not among the top 200 in the ranking, but he has climbed since then to the point of playing a round of 16 in the Cathedral of tennis. Not enough to top a Djokovic undefeated on these courts since 2017.
He did take a set from him, the second, based on good serves and after an endless game of more than ten minutes in which he had to overcome four break balls. On his third set point, he took Djokovic’s second set of the tournament, after the one he lost in his debut.
This did not disrupt the plans of the Serb, who accelerated in the third (6-1) and in the fourth (6-2), to achieve his 25th victory in the tournament, since losing to Tomas Berdych in 2017.
The Serbian’s next rival will be the Italian Jannik Sinner, who got rid of the Spanish Carlos Alcaraz in the second turn of the central court. Sinner, 20, has faced Djokovic once in his career, with a defeat at the Masters 1,000 in Monte Carlo in 2021 by 6-4 and 6-2. In fact, Sinner has never been able to beat a member of the ‘top 5’ and has lost all twelve duels he has played against these players.
