The Serbian, who reaches 25 consecutive victories in the tournament will run into Sinner in his thirteenth appearance among the top eight in the tournament.
Novak Djokovic has inherited at Wimbledon the dominance that Roger Federer had in the past. The Serbian has qualified this Sunday for the thirteenth time for the quarterfinals of the tournament after defeating Tim van Rijthoven 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 and 6-2.
To find the last time that the 20 big champion gave in on the London grass, you have to go back to the quarterfinals of the 2017 edition and it was due to injury against Tomas Berdych.
Since then. he has swayed his 25 games in his favor. That sequence of victories is only surpassed on this type of surface by Federer´s 65 and Bjorn Borg´s 41.
Van Rijthoven was not expected to give him much trouble even though he has established himself as a green carpet specialist. He arrived at the appointment undefeated on the pitch as a winner in Hertogenbosch where he had also enjoyed a “wild card”.
The 104 in the ranking benefited from an invitation to enter directly into the main draw. But Djokovic is a lot of Djokovic and ended the Dutchman´s unbeaten run on grass that lasted eight games.
Van Rijthoven will always be able to say that he took a set from the 20-major champion. It was the second and jeopardised the conclusion of the match because the agreement with the Wimbledon neighbourhood does not allow play beyond 11,00 p.m.
Jorge Barbero
