IT was a day when the triumvirate of superpowers at the top of world tennis needed to flex their muscles to keep their distance from the rest of the field.
And a day when an ambitious young pretender to their throne announced his intention to close the gap by stong-arming the No 5 seed out of the competition.
During the course of a sunkissed day six of Wimbledon, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic all joined Andy Murray in the fourth round. But while Nadal and Federer did so without dropping a set, Marcos Baghdatis, a semi-finalist in 2006, was highlighting hitherto hidden frailties in the Serbian world No 2.
Djokovic has lost just one match, to Federer at the French Open, all year and it was one of the ironies of the day that his least convincing display for some time should end with his portion of the draw here opening up.
Most of that was down to a young man in a hurry from the Gold Coast of Australia. Bernard Tomic achieved what his friend and more illustrious countryman Lleyton Hewitt could not when he knocked out the No 5 seed, Sweden’s Robin Soderling, beating him 6-1, 6-4, 7-5 . It was somewhat appropriate, considering it was already guaranteed that the teenager would knock Hewitt from the perch as Australian No 1, which he has held since the turn of the millennium, when the new rankings come out.
Tomic is the first 18-year-old to reach the fourth round at Wimbledon for 21 years. Soderling claimed to have been experiencing dizziness during the match. That may have had something to do the way the young Australian’s shots were whistling past him.
As for Djokovic, there was some smashing tennis played during the course of his 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Baghdatis on Centre Court. There was also some smashing of racquets. The Serb abandoned any pretence of cool on-court demeanour by cracking the frame off the rock-hard turf behind the baseline after Baghdatis held to consolidate his second-set lead.
“I did lose my temper a bit,” said Djokovic, who now faces No 19 seed Michael Llodra. “I was missing from the baseline a lot and it was something I was frustrated about. It helps me, even if it doesn’t look great.”
Cypriot Baghdatis had the crowd chanting his name with such fervour you could have sworn he was playing a Davis Cup tie in Limassol. His reportoire included keepie-uppies, sprints to the opposite baseline, and saving match points, even if there was an inevitability that the superior fitness of Djokovic would see him through.
By comparison, Nadal’s progress was routine. Play had resumed with the world No 1 a set to the good against Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller, and before long he also took the second set, again on a tie-break. The big-serving Luxembourger might have beaten Nadal here in 2005, but his resistance was broken and the Spaniard finished matters off 6-0 in the third.
He takes on Juan Martin del Potro tomorrow, after the Argentine achieved his best Wimbledon performance by dismissing Gilles Simon 7-6, 7-6, 7-5. Then it could be a rematch with the man he beat in the final last year, Tomas Berdych – who has yet to drop a set this time – or a meeting with No 10 seed Mardy Fish, who benefited when Robin Haase withdrew with a knee injury yesterday.
On the face of it, Federer’s Centre Court encounter with David Nalbandian might have produced similar drama to Djokovic’s match. The 2002 finalist is a contemporary of Federer’s who has beaten him on eight previous occasions.
A ninth victory briefly seemed a possibility when the Argentine’s clean back-court hitting broke the Federer serve for the first time in the tournament. But the Swiss broke back immediately and permitted only the briefest stay of execution before despatching Nalbandian 6-4, 6-2, 6-4.
As the seeds continue to fall in Murray’s section, Lukasz Kubot of Poland, a doubles specialist, beat the No 9 seed Gael Monfils, meaning Murray will face an unseeded quarter-finalist in Kubot or Feliciano Lopez should the Scot beat Richard Gasquet.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article