Novak Turns Up The Heat On Wimbledon Challenge

“Anything you can do I can do better” stated a dominant display from Novak Djokovic to his good friend and rival Andy Murray, after the ominous Serb increased the heat of his Wimbledon challenge to draw the first week of the Championships to a poised close.

Djokovic fires himself into the second week

Just Twenty-four hours after Murray’s tantalising victory over Tommy Robredo, Djokovic responded with a master class of his own on the sixth day of what has already been an unpredictable and eventful tournament. However that hasn’t been the case for the top two seeds.

Like Murray, Djokovic was scheduled last on centre court for his third round encounter with French man Jeremy Chardy, a man who in his six previous meetings had failed to take a set off the current world number one.

Unfortunately for Chardy after less than an hour and half on centre court it was made a painful seven matches without a set against Djokovic, whose overwhelming performance sent out a worrying message to the rest of the draw.

Djokovic made sure he didn’t follow in the footsteps of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer who along with many others fell victim to a first week of major upsets. Djokovic however showed no signs of making the same mistake.

The Serb dropped just six points on serve in the whole match, while his ruthless returns were at times unplayable, as he cleanly dispatched the 28^th seed Chardy 6-3 6-2 6-2 with minimum fuss.

 "I felt very confident stepping onto the court but it's never easy against Chardy, he's a quality player," Djokovic said after the match.

"Everything went my way. I haven't lost many points on my service game, I enjoyed it very much and it's very enjoyable when everything works well” Djokovic will next face 35 year old German Tommy Haas in Monday’s fourth round after Haas defeated Feliciano Lopez 4-6 6-2 7-5 6-4.

Djokovic’s consistency in majors is becoming more and more impressive, with the Serb reaching the semi final in the last 12 Grand Slams, A stat which looked unthreatened by the challenge from Chardy.

 As Djokovic later expressed, Chardy is a “quality player “who has recently reached a career high ranking of 25 in the world, nevertheless against Djokovic the talented Frenchman was made to look average at best by the merciless top seed.

Chardy’s early resistance made a brief match of the third round contest, as both men held serve to make it 3-3; however it was taking twice the amount of time for the Frenchman to hold serve compared to Djokovic, whose first serve percentage boasted at a dazzling 81% by the end of the first set.

Consequently a single break for Djokovic was enough to claim to first set, and subsequent to a double break for the Serb at the start of the second set Djokovic’s path to the second week looked as good as complete.

The third set also whizzed by in a flash and like Murray Djokovic’s impeccable show was over by 8pm. Djokovic’s early finish allowed the organisers to move Serena Williams’ match from Court One to Centre where she wasted little time in securing a 6-2 6-0 victory over Kimiko Date-Krumm.

However the big story of the day was the gusty fight back of 19 year old Brit Laura Robson who recovered from 6-1 5-3 down to beat New Zealand’s Marina Erakovic 1-6 7-5 6-3 to become the first British woman to reach the fourth round since 1998.

As for Djokovic his steps towards his second Wimbledon crown are turning into strides, while the probable outcome of a final with home favourite Andy Murray is becoming increasingly likely. But as has been proved by a strange first week at SW19 anything is possible.