Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic advanced to the next round after a dominant win over Stan Wawrinka, a three-time grand slam title winner in their third-round clash at the ongoing Wimbledon championships in London on Saturday.
The match was a one-sided affair largely and Djokovic won it 6-3, 6-1, 7-6(5), as per ATP. With this, Djokovic also avoided the chance of the match being carried over to Saturday.
“I have to say that it’s amazing what Stan is doing. Still his age, after several surgeries. We are two old guys fighting with the young guns, I think it is important to acknowledge that,” Djokovic said in his on-court interview as per ATP.
“It is amazing. It’s inspiring. Like Andy [Murray], he was forced to drop [in] the rankings in the last couple of years [and is] trying to build his ranking.”
“We have had some amazing battles on the biggest courts in the sport. I respect Stan a lot as a player, I really love him as a person. He’s an extremely nice guy. So I wish him all the best for the for the rest of the season,” said Djokovic.
After he won his second-round clash, Wawrinka was not expecting at all to upset the second seed.
“Hopefully I can make a competitive match, but if you will look at recent results, I don’t really stand a chance,” he had said. The predictions made by the former World No. 3 came true.
In his opening service game of the match, Wawrinka fought back to hold from 0/40, but the difficulty was a portent of things to come. In order to defeat his opponent and the 11 p.m. curfew, Djokovic was laser-focused.
The 23-time grand slam champion leads Wawrinka 21-6, head-to-head. This was their just third meeting since the final of the 2016 US Open, which the Swiss player won. In the round of 16, Djokovic will be playing 17th seed Hubert Hurkacz, who defeated 14th seed Lorenzo Musetti 7-6(4), 6-4, 6-4 earlier.
Earlier, trailing overnight, Stefanos Tsitsipas completed a thrilling turnaround victory on Friday at the ongoing Wimbledon 2023 when he stormed past two-time champion Andy Murray 7-6(3), 6-7(2), 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-4.
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