Cronjé stars as Kings give Royal show to stun Bulls

Djokovic means business as he reaches fourth round

ALL HAIL the Kings!

It didn’t matter that their Super Rugby fate had been decided the day before, the Southern Kings came to the capital and conquered South Africa’s only Super Rugby dynasty.

It came as no surprise that the Kings emerged 31-30 victors over the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld last night as the Eastern Cape side have battled valiantly all season long and along the way claimed the prized scalps of the former champions the Waratahs in Sydney, the Sharks in Port Elizabeth and the Jaguares in Buenos Aires before dethroning the Bulls at home.

As true and sad as it is that the Kings will no longer be part of Super Rugby next year and they will probably be conquering the unchartered territories of the northern hemisphere, they have seemingly made it their ultimate crusade to leave the competition on their own terms.

And they did that with aplomb.

The visitors wasted no time in laying down the marker from a penalty by captain courageous and flyhalf Lionel Cronjé who calmly slotted over a penalty in the opening minutes of the game and it would be Cronjé who would also have a final say in the game with a drop-goal and two penalties, one coming right at the death to win the game for the Kings.

Cronjé epitomised everything about the Kings this season, from a man who was plucked out of the wilderness by Kings coach Deon Davids to revive his career. The journeyman flyhalf marshalled his troops, made the right decisions and kicked impeccably. LONDON: Three-time Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic roared his way into the fourth round with a 6-4, 6-1, 7-6(2) defeat of unpredictable Latvian Ernests Gulbis on Centre Court at Wimbledon yesterday.

The 30-year-old Serb began slowly before taking control and then snuffed out a Gulbis counter-attack in the third set to set up a clash with Frenchman Adrian Mannarino.

Djokovic, seeded two, looked fired up throughout the contest, telling the umpire to “focus” early on after some close line calls and then bellowing at himself after winning two points in the third-set tie-break.

“I’m delighted, I raised my level of tennis today compared to the first two rounds,” Djokovic, who has reached the second week for the10th time, said.

“This was the most focused I’ve been on the court for the last couple of weeks.”

Djokovic trailed 4-2 in the first set as former top-10 player Gulbis, now down at 589 in the rankings having had his career interrupted by injuries, began impressively. But once Djokovic broke back thanks to a double fault he took command and was relatively untroubled.

Sam Querrey needed a matter of minutes yesterday to book his place in the last 16 when he polished off Jo-wilfried Tsonga after bad light had stopped play the day before. Querrey won 6-2, 3-6, 7-6, 1-6, 7-5 in a match lasting almost three hours. – Reuters