Seven-time Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic and Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz didn’t finish their fourth-round match at the 2023 Wimbledon on Sunday due to a curfew.
Djokovic had won two tie-breaks against Hubert Hurkacz before the match was stopped at 10.35pm.
According to independent. co.uk, Wimbledon chiefs will again be under scrutiny for their insistence on starting play no earlier than 1.30pm on Centre Court despite knowing it cannot go past the council-imposed 11pm curfew.
Andrey Rublev’s five-set win over Alexander Bublik took three hours and 17 minutes, before Iga Swiatek beat Belinda Bencic in three sets, two of which were tie-breaks, which also took just over three hours.
Notwithstanding, Djokovic, who finished his match against Stan Wawrinka at 10.46pm on Friday night, and Hurkacz finally walked on to court at 8.41pm, and Hurkacz hit the first serve of the fourth-round match at 8.49pm. It was almost sure that the two protagonists of the last match on the Centre Court on Sunday won’t finish it on time.
It was a sixth meeting on the ATP Tour between the the 23-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic and Hurkacz the 17th seed, the man who ended Roger Federer’s Wimbledon career two years ago.
The first set was a typical grass-court set with no break points, and it had to be decided in a tie-break. It looked good for the Polish player who led 6-3, but he lost his lead due to multiple mistakes and Djokovic won the first-set tie-break 8-6, tennis-infinity.com reports.
In the second set, there were a total of five break points, and all for the Serb as Hurkacz had to show his A-game to save them all. Eventually, the second set reached a tie-break too, and the underdog had his chances once again.
Hurkacz was leading 5-4 with two balls in his hand and with 23 aces hit in the first two sets, he was a big favourite to serve it out. But once again, Djokovic won the second-set tie-break 8-6.
And right after the second set ended, the match had to be suspended due to Wimbledon curfew, which was put in place in 2009 to ‘balance the consideration of the local residents with the scale of an international tennis event that takes place in a residential area.’
The pair will resume on Monday with the winner will face Russian seventh seed Andrey Rublev in the quarter-finals.
