LONDON: Defending champion Andy Murray reached his seventh successive Wimbledon quarter-final yesterday with a straight sets demolition of Kevin Anderson under the Centre Court roof while torrential rain brought more chaos to his rivals.
Top seed Novak Djokovic also reached the quarter-finals for the sixth successive year with a 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (7/5) win over French 14th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Djokovic, the 2011 champion, will be playing in his 21st successive Grand Slam quarter-final when he faces Croatia’s Marin Cilic for a place in the semi-finals.
His win yesterday was his 13th in 18 meetings against two-time Wimbledon semi-finalist Tsonga and 11th in a row.
Cilic reached the quarter-finals for the first time with a 7-6 (10/8), 6-4, 6-4 win over France’s Jeremy Chardy.
Cilic, coached by 2001 Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic, missed the 2013 tournament before serving a six-month drugs ban.
“Last year I felt that I was in a pretty good form. I don’t know if that comes with playing several years on grass, but year after year I was feeling better and better,” said Cilic, who had defeated sixth seeded Tomas Berdych in the third round.
“Over here I think we had really good preparation week before Wimbledon, and it’s paying off in the matches.”
Third-seeded Murray defeated the big-serving South African 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (8/6) with 11 aces and 49 winners and next faces Bulgarian 11th seed Grigor Dimitrov who reached his first Wimbledon quarter-final with a 6-4, 7-6 (8/6), 6-2 win over Argentina’s Leonardo Mayer.
The 23-year-old Dimitrov is the first Bulgarian man to make the Wimbledon last-eight but has a 3-1 losing record to Murray.
“All the matches are tough, everyone in the quarter-finals of the slams is playing top tennis,” said 27-year-old Murray.
“I have to concentrate on my side of the court and if I play well, I will make it tough for him.”
Just as on Saturday, rain brought a lengthy stoppage in the afternoon with more than 30 matches -- doubles and juniors -- cancelled until today.
All last-16 men’s and women’s matches are traditionally played on the second Monday but seven will now take place 24 hours later instead.
Stan Wawrinka was stunned that he had to play his third round tie, one of Saturday’s victims, yesterday in a scheduling nightmare which will force him to play five matches in seven days if he is to win the title.
The third-seeded Australian Open champion defeated Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 to reach the fourth round for the first time since 2009.
Wawrinka will now play his fourth round on Tuesday against 19th seed Feliciano Lopez of Spain who also waited until yesterday to see off John Isner, the ninth seeded American, 6-7 (8/10), 7-6 (8/6), 7-6 (7/3), 7-5.
Victory today would mean a quarter-final on Wednesday before getting back on schedule for semi-final day on Friday and a potential final date on Sunday.
“I was disappointed. I was expecting them to move matches, move maybe juniors or doubles, to make my match or Isner/Lopez’s match first on when they started at 5:00pm or 6:00pm again when it stop raining,” said Wawrinka.
“But you cannot do anything. They do what they want and you just follow. They don’t listen to the player. They just do what they think is good for them.”
He added: “I was surprised because (after the rain) it was a perfect day to finish. They said for security reason, they didn’t want to put our match on a small court. But (Kei) Nishikori (the 10th seed) was playing on small courts.”
In the remaining third round match to be completed, Nishikori saw off Italian lucky loser Simone Bolelli 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (7/4), 6-4 after the pair had finished 3-3 in the decider on Saturday.
In his maiden last-16 appearance, Nishikori will face Canadian eighth seed Milos Raonic today.
Isner’s defeat to Lopez meant that no America man or woman had reached the fourth round at Wimbledon for the first time since 1911.AFP
