Medvedev, Rybakina reach last 8 as Lehecka, Haddad Maia retire

LONDON: Defending champion Novak Djokovic survived some tough moments against Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz before wrapping up his fourth-round clash held over from Sunday night as he reached the quarterfinals here on Monday.

After winning the first two sets on Sunday evening, the seven-time champion from Serbia returned to Centre Court 16 hours later and dropped the third set before sealing a 7-6(6), 7-6(6), 5-7, 6-4 victory over Hurkacz.

In another match, American Christopher Eubanks stunned fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece in a five-set thriller in the fourth round, storming into the quarterfinals with a superb win. Eubanks came back from a set deficit twice as he won the match 3-6, 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in just over three hours at the No.2 Court.

In what was his 100th match at Wimbledon, Djokovic faced some stressful times on Monday in the match that was suspended because of the 11 pm curfew on Sunday. When the action resumed, Hurkacz who played the more relaxed tennis, which helped him win the third set. His 33 aces proved menacing for the Serbian.

But Djokovic survived and will next play seventh seed Andrey Rublev, who defeated Alexander Bublik in five sets on Sunday. The 23-time major winner leads the pair’s ATP head-to-head series 3-1, with Rublev winning on clay in last year’s Belgrade final.

Hurkacz came out fighting on Monday as the Polish world No.18, who missed three set points in the opening set tie-break and was serving at 5-4 in the second set shootout and rattled off the opening six points of the third set.

He dropped only three points during his opening six service games and with Djokovic serving at 5-6 15-30, Hur-kacz clobbered a big forehand up the line to bring up two set points, clinching the third set 7-5.

Djokovic, however, claimed the momentum back in the seventh game of the fourth set. Hurkacz saved two break points from 15-40 only to lose his footing behind the baseline at deuce to allow Djokovic to engineer a third. This time the Serb made no mistake, taking control of the point before watching a Hurkacz forehand sail wide. Moments later Djokovic sailed through his final service game to love to seal victory.

The result improves Djokovic’s statistics at the biggest tournaments in the world as it was his 90th win on Lon-don grass and set him up for his 14th Wimbledon quarterfinal and his 56th across four Grand Slams.

Djokovic stayed on track for a fifth successive Wimbledon title and a record-equalling eighth men's singles tro-phy, the 24th Grand Slam title of his career and also on course for a calendar Grand Slam after winning the Austral-ia and French Open tournaments earlier in the year.

The men's and women's third seeds, Daniil Medvedev and Elena Rybakina advanced to quarterfinals in their re-spective sections in Wimbledon on Monday as their opponents retired from their matches because of injuries.

Medvedev reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon for the first time when Czech Jiri Lehecka was forced to re-tire at the end of the second set of the pair's fourth-round clash due to injury.

Rybakina was leading 4-1 in the first set when Beatriz Haddad Maia retired to hand her a place in the last eight.

The third-seeded Medvedev, who is making his fifth appearance at The Championships, led Lehecka 6-4, 6-2 on Court 1 when the 21-year-old retired. With his 80-minute win, Medvedev earned a Tour-leading 45th victory of the season.

“I honestly did not know until he retired," Medvedev said. "I mean, I saw that his movement was a little bit re-stricted, but the way he struck the ball, I thought it was not going to cause him [too much] trouble. But when he re-tired, I was like, ‘OK, I see it’s different’. Unfortunately during a match, you don’t have any other choice than to fight for every point, because of how many times it happened, even with me, that you think you are injured and then you win one game, one break, and get back into the match. You think, ‘OK, maybe I should continue playing’, and then you win the match," Medvedev was quoted as saying on the ATP Tour website.

Medvedev, who is chasing his second major title this week after triumphing at the US Open in 2021, will meet the winner of the clash between fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas and American Christopher Eubanks. By reaching the last eight, the 27-year-old Russian has become the 10th active player to advance to the quarterfinals at all four majors. He is a two-time Australian Open finalist and has advanced to the quarterfinals at Roland Garros in 2021.

Women's defending champion Rybakina was expecting a tough fight from Haddad Maia having lost to the Brazilian twice in this season. The 27-year-old from Brazil is an accomplished grasscourt competitor, with the 2022 Nottingham and Birmingham titles on her record. Among active players, only Caroline Garcia (with 21) has won more matches on grass.

But it was a heart-breaking injury, not Haddad Maia’s dangerous left-handed form, that ultimately proved the defining factor in an abbreviated encounter. After dropping serve in the fourth game, the 27-year-old clutched her back and immediately requested a trainer.

She left the court for a medical timeout but was clearly in pain and physically hampered when she resumed the match. She played just one more game, Rybakina easily winning it, before tearfully conceding she couldn’t contin-ue.

The 25th seed American Madison Keys came from a set and a break down to snap qualifier Mirra Andreeva's dream run in the fourth round, advancing to her ninth major quarterfinal with 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-2 win.

This was Keys' second Wimbledon quarterfinal. She previously made the last eight at the grass-court major in 2015.

The 16-year-old Andreeva had been bidding to become the youngest Wimbledon quarterfinalist since Anna Kournikova in 1997.

In other fourth round matches, second seed Aryna Sabalenka beat 21st seed Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-0 while 6th seed Ons Jabeur thrashed 9th seed Petra Kvitová 6-0, 6-3. Agencies

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