Novak Djokovic grabbed a two-set lead in his fourth round match against Hubert Hurkacz but only after withstanding a ferocious barrage of aces from the Pole before play was suspended at Wimbledon on Sunday.
The Serbian, bidding for a fifth successive Wimbledon title and eighth in all, edged two absorbing sets on tiebreaks to lead 7-6(6), 7-6(6) and will surely finish the job on Monday.
Hurkacz rocketed down 23 aces including one clocked at 141mph -- the fastest serve of the tournament so far.
Djokovic will sleep a lot easier than he might have done if the 17th seed Hurkacz had taken the opening set after two aces saw him to 6-3 in the tiebreak.
But the pressure of trying to put Djokovic away was too much. Djokovic won both his points on serve to close the gap and then returned a Hurkacz howitzer and the Pole could only roll a forehand into the net.
Another forehand out over the baseline allowed Djokovic to bag the opening set.
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With the clock ticking towards Wimbledon’s 11pm curfew, Djokovic hunted the break of serve in the second set that might have cracked Hurkacz’s resistance but every time he had a sniff of a break an ace flew past him.
Hurkacz found himself 0-40 down at 3-4 but cracked down a couple of aces on the way back to deuce only to waft a volley out to give the second seed another chance.
This time Hurkacz’s spinning volley crept over and Djokovic almost fell over the net as he missed the put-away.
Another tiebreak arrived and Hurkacz won a stunning baseline rally to save a set point but two points later he sent a forehand out to hand Djokovic a two-set lead.
With no chance of finishing another set, the players headed off to the locker room.
The winner will face Russian seventh seed Andrey Rublev in the quarter-finals.
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