Djoker in seriously fine form
NO ball girls were close to tears and there was no real prospect of a tournament upset either. The Djoker has clearly stopped joking around. This was nothing like his fourthround match against Kevin Anderson, which was dragged across five sets, two days, one tantrum and necessitated an apology to a ball girl.
No, this win over Marin Cilic saw Novak Djokovic at his functional best, occasionally sliding across the baseline but never reaching the edges of his comfort zone.
He was, as he said, ‘very solid’. And when he measures up to that internal standard, he is extremely hard to beat.
If there is a hope for the rest of them, with the mercurial Richard Gasquet pitted against him in the semi-finals, it is that Djokovic, unusually, has been a magnet for trouble in this tournament.
It started with suggestions of cheating, owing to an admission of on-court coaching by Boris Becker, and culminated last night with some agitation towards questions about the ball girl episode in the Anderson match.
The situation is that he appeared to scare a ball girl while forcefully demanding his towel; the upshot is that he sought her out after his win over Cilic to apologise. But clearly the saga has ruffled him.
‘Look, I’ve talked with the girl and she said she didn’t mind,’ he said. ‘We cleared it up. I apologised.
‘But, again, as I said last press conference, I didn’t direct anything to her. It was in a moment of a battle. I turned around and screamed. I’m sorry that she was there in that moment.
‘I was ball kid myself. I respect them. I spoke to her and we cleared the air. She didn’t mind at all. Look, you know, I really don’t want to talk too much about this particular situation. I’m not running away from it. As I said, in that moment nothing is directed to the ball girl or any ball kid.’
His match with Cilic, the ninth seed and reigning US Open champion, was a little more straightforward.
That is not to say Cilic was a pushover — Goran Ivanisevic’s student actually hit more winners than Becker’s boy, by 30 to 27. But a more reliable indicator of this match is that Djokovic, the world No 1, hit only 12 unforced errors in three sets.
It was a very different encounter to when these two met at the same stage last year and Djokovic had to battle back from two sets to one down. Yesterday’s clash was his 13th win in 13 attempts against Cilic and with it he reached a 27th Grand Slam semi-final.
For a sharper perspective, he has reached the final four in 20 of his past 21 majors, including six straight editions of Wimbledon.
Tennis is a numbers game and they add up beautifully for the king of percentages right now.
He said: ‘I’ve been playing really good. I’m hoping I still have that extra gear. I still feel like I can do certain things better.
‘But, again, winning against Marin Cilic in straight sets in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon is a good win and I have to take the best out of it.’
Ominously for Gasquet, and indeed the winner of Andy Murray’s engagement with Roger Federer, the signs are that Djokovic has moved on from what was a particularly galling French Open final loss last month.
The elimination last night of Stan Wawrinka, his conqueror in Paris, might remove yet another mental hurdle.
‘It definitely wasn’t easy to digest that loss in the finals against Stan,’ he said. ‘I thought it was a great chance for me to win Roland Garros for the first time. But I put that behind me.’
Next up is Gasquet, a talent as unpredictable as Djokovic’s is reliable. Get past him and he will have a shot at a ninth Slam title against Murray or Federer.
‘I can’t pick a favourite between them, honestly, because, yes, Roger is maybe better ranked than he is. And he has an incredible history of playing and winning here at Wimbledon.
‘But Andy has been playing some of his best tennis this year, won at Queen’s a few weeks ago, and he’s playing in front of his home crowd. I would go 50/50. It’s really hard to say.’
Worryingly for all three of the other men in this draw, Djokovic seems to have found his stride.