Novak beats van Rijthoven ... and curfew
WIMBLEDON — Even knowing what a chaotic Wimbledon this has been, what with so many unexpected results and new faces popping up, and so few top seeds — and fewer major champions — remaining, surely Novak Djokovic would not lose to a wild-card entry making his Grand Slam debut, would he?
If it did not quite seem plausible, it did at least become vaguely possible a tad past 9:30 p.m. on Sunday night under the closed roof at Centre Court, when 25-year-old Dutchman Tim van Rijthoven — ranking: 104th; lifetime tour-level victories: eight, all in the past month — had the temerity to smack a 133 mph ace past Djokovic and even their fourth-round match at a set apiece.
All of nine minutes later, the time it took Djokovic to grab 12 of the next 15 points, and the next three games, both plausibility and possibility took a hike. Soon enough, the third set was his, and not much later, so was the fourth, and the match, a 6-2, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 result that gave the tournament’s
No. 1 seed a 25th consecutive grass-court victory at the All England Club and a place in his 13th Wimbledon quarterfinal.
Beforehand, van Rijthoven had said: “I’ll go into that match thinking I can win.” He might have still had that sense Sunday evening.
Eventually, though, the only true question was whether Djokovic would wrap this one up in time, because there is an 11 p.m. curfew (he closed the deal with 20 minutes to spare). They did not begin playing until 8 p.m., in part due to a delay of roughly an hour at the start of this special afternoon — the first time in history the tournament’s middle Sunday held scheduled play — while a ceremony was held to honor the 100 years of Centre Court.
Djokovic was among the many past champions who took part, joking to the crowd when it was his turn to speak, “Gosh, I feel more nervous than when I’m playing.”
If he was, indeed, jittery at all at a set apiece many hours later against van Rijthoven, it certainly did not show. Didn’t matter that van Rijthoven kept cranking out huge serves, to the tune of 20 aces, including a pair on second serves.