30. 06. 2010. ·
World no.3 Novak Djokovic advanced into Wimbledon semi-finals for the second time in his career! The best Serbian tennis player ousted world no.82 Yen-Hsun Lu of Taiwan in straight sets 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 in 1 hour and 51 minutes.
Novak has made a confident start to this match. He missed two break points in the fourth game of the opening set, but converted his chance in the sixth and then raced through a love service hold with an unreturnable first serve to consolidate the break and extend his lead to 5-2. The Serb took the set 6-3 in 31 minutes.
Djokovic broke his opponent’s serve twice in the second set for convincing 6-2 to leave himself firmly in control of the match.
The 23-year-old Belgrade native got off to the perfect start in the third set as he broke to 15. Nole got the double break on his third attempt in the fifth game when Lu hit a forehand into the net, and shortly after he closed the set and match 6-2.
Match point:
Match statistics: aces (4-4), double faults (3-2), winners (29-13), unforced errors (17-16), total points won (94-58).
“It’s really refreshing to perform this way I’d say after a while. I was struggling with the level of my performance throughout the last five, six months. It was a lot of ups and downs. But right now I’m playing great. It definitely makes me happy. Right now I think I’m raising my confidence level and performance level match after match. This is something that is very encouraging in this stage of the tournament. Nothing is easy these days, especially at this stage of the tournament. I deserved to win. I’m very, very happy with the performance today,” said Djokovic after the match.
Novak will face no.12 seed Tomas Berdych in attempt to reach his first Wimbledon finals. The Czech stunned the six-time defending champion Swiss Roger Federer in four sets 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4.
“Berdych has got some great results in last couple of months. So he’s one of the toughest players to play against I guess lately. I’m gonna have to be patient and wait for the chances. Obviously, both of us, we gonna have a great motivation to proceed to the next round and finals. I would give everything to play finals in Wimbledon.”
Djokovic and Berdych have met twice, Nole won both encounters. The match is scheduled on Friday.
Novak will return to no.2 in the ATP Rankings on Monday, as a result of his victory and Roger Federer’s quarter-final loss to Tomas Berdych.
