Today’s action at Wimbledon saw the status quo resume after following on from what was probably one of the craziest days ever in Wimbledon history. After a morning spent debating the fallout from the third day of action, day four’s action took centre stage as most matches reached their conclusion without too much drama and saw the likes of Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin Del Potro steamroll their way into the next round.
The weather was the focal point today, this year’s tournament seems to be going from one extreme to the other, as many matches away from centre court were called off or postponed midway through as the rain relentlessly lashed down around the All-England Club. Djokovic though was protected from such disturbances by the Centre Court roof and to be honest they were more or less the only disturbances he needed saving from as he waltzed through his clash with 156th ranked Bobby Reynolds. A solitary tiebreak in the first set was about as hard as Djokovic’s day got as he won in straight sets and broke his opponent twice in the second set to put the writing on the wall for the American before running away with the third set to a final score of 7-6(2), 6-3, 6-1. Djokovic, like Murray is picking his punches really well in this tournament so far, exerting himself when he has to (which so far is very rarely) to gain an advantage and then just doing enough for the rest of the match to get the result. The top two in the world right now are showing a mastery of self-preservation, I know its early days but should they both make the final it’ll be an absolute war!
Eighth seed, Juan Martin Del Potro, had it just as easy in his clash with Canadian Jesse Levine coming through with a 6-2, 7-6(7), 6-3 win. Del Potro’s power is a problem for the best of players and this clash with Levine showed just how much a difference his power makes as he battered his opponent left, right and centre in the first and third sets but came unstuck at times in the second set. A semi-final meeting with the aforementioned Novak Djokovic is still on the cards and the way these two athletes are performing right now it’ll certainly be a spectacle.
Grigor Dimitrov and Grega Zemlja took part in arguably the day’s best encounter though as they went through the whole five sets and had it not been for the weather stopping the play, I think they’d probably still be going now. Dimitrov was fantastic in spurts but lacked consistency as his Slovenian opponent has matched him punch for punch and even attempted a few knockout blows of his own as Dimitrov has had to save two match points so far in the final set. Dimitrov is currently trailing by a game and play is set to resume tomorrow morning. Other matches set to recommence tomorrow morning are the Struff-Chardy clash which is currently balanced at a set apiece and the Giraldo-Dolgopolov match within which the latter is leading by a set. They’ll be followed by third round matches featuring the likes of David Ferrer, Federer-conqueror Sergiy Strakhovsky and Andy Murray.
We’ll be covering every day of the Championship from here on in but for the extensive results and all the news from today’s action at Wimbledon be sure to head over to the official Wimbledon website!