The fourth round of the men’s singles competition at the Wimbledon Championships offered a mixed bag for the fans.
There was one five-setter that was especially exciting for the British fans, as Cameron Norrie–the last player from the host nation still alive in singles–won a marathon against Nicolas Jarry. A trio of four-set matches headlined Monday’s schedule. Alex de Minaur even put a scare into Novak Djokovic before the seven-time champion prevailed 1-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. Ben Shelton and Lorenzo Sonego had another fun head-to-head showdown at a Grand Slam, while Flavio Cobolli battled past Marin Cilic in fourth-set tiebreaker.
However, there was also plenty of pain. On Sunday, Jordan Thompson retired against Taylor Fritz after just 10 games. Much more notably, Grigor Dimitrov retired in his third set against Jannik Sinner on Monday night.
And that’s putting it bluntly. The truth is that a retirement that absolutely rocked these Championships–the most shocking moment of the fortnight so far. Amazingly, Dimitrov led Sinner two sets to love–potentially on the brink of a massive upset victory over the world No. 1. From completely out of nowhere, however, the 34-year-old Bulgarian sustained what appeared to be a freak pectoral injury at 2-2 in the third.
“I don’t take this as a win at all,” Sinner said during his on-court interview. “I don’t know what to say. He is an incredible player; we all saw this today. He’s been so unlucky in the past couple of years. “He’s an incredible player and a good friend of mine off the court…. If he could play in the next round, he would honestly deserve it.
“I hope he has a speedy recovery. (It’s) very unlucky from his side and a very unfortunate moment for us to witness.”
The Italian will face Ben Shelton in the quarterfinals on Wednesday–if he, himself, is healthy. Sinner appeared to suffer some sort of elbow injury in the very first game of his match against Dimitrov.
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on Twitter at @Dimonator.