Hubert Hurkacz downs No. 2 seed Medvedev to secure 1st Grand Slam quarter-final berth
Will face idol Federer while Karolina Pliskova advances to 1st Wimbledon semifinal
An overnight break helped No. 14-seeded Hubert Hurkacz of Poland rally past No. 2 Daniil Medvedev to earn the last quarter-final berth at Wimbledon.
Hurkacz won 2-6, 7-6 (2), 3-6, 6-3, 6-3. The players were on serve in the fourth set when the match was suspended Monday night because of rain.
The versatile Hurkacz won 50 points at the net, including 10 when playing serve and volley.
Hurkacz's first Grand Slam quarter-final will come against Roger Federer, his idol and 20-time major champion, on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Karolina Pliskova's tennis success is predicated on a big serve, which rewards her with plenty of easy points and can get her out of trouble when needed.
Thanks largely to that stroke, she is headed to the Wimbledon semifinals for the first time.
'I'm improving with every match'
Pliskova claimed 24 of 26 points on her serve in one stretch, hit eight aces and saved the only three break chances she faced on the way to a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Viktorija Golubic on Tuesday at the All England Club.
"I feel like I'm improving with every match. … Everything today was working quite well," said Pliskova, the 2016 U.S. Open runner-up and a former No. 1-ranked player. "I just feel my game is good the last two weeks, even in the practices."
The crowd there, and at Centre Court, could be at full capacity Tuesday for the first time during the tournament after COVID-19 restrictions placed a 50 per cent cap on attendance when the fortnight began.
Pliskova has been broken only three times through five matches so far and she has not dropped a set. She also hasn't played anyone ranked better than 47th yet but will meet No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka for a berth in the final.
Sabalenka, who has won more matches this year than anyone else in women's tennis, used her attacking style to beat No. 21 Ons Jabeur 6-4, 6-3 on Tuesday.
Playing in her first major quarter-final, Sabalenka was aggressive with her strokes and court position but still had more winners than unforced errors. Until this year, she had never advanced beyond the second round at Wimbledon.
Top-ranked Barty cruises to semifinals
Ash Barty beat Ajla Tomljanovic 6-1, 6-3 in the first all-Australian Grand Slam quarter-final in 41 years.
Barty broke for a 5-3 lead in the second set and then served out the win with an ace. The world No. 1 finished with 23 winners to just five for Tomljanovic, who was playing in her first Grand Slam quarter-final.
Barty will play 2018 Wimbledon champion Angelique Kerber on Thursday.
Barty won the girls' singles title at Wimbledon in 2011 but had not been past the fourth round at the All England Club in four previous appearances.
2018 champion Kerber moves on
Angelique Kerber advanced to the Wimbledon semifinals for the fourth time by beating an erratic Karolina Muchova 6-2, 6-3.
Kerber won the 2018 title, and the return to lawn tennis has rejuvenated her after a first-round loss at the French Open.
Seeded 25th, Kerber used her steady strokes to beat Muchova, who had 27 unforced errors and only nine winners.
The 33-year-old Kerber earned her 80th career grass-court victory, including 11 this year. Last month the German won her first title in nearly three years on grass at Bad Homburg.
This is the first time in the Open era, which began in 1968, that there were six first-time women's quarter-finalists at the All England Club. That group included both the eighth-seeded Pliskova, a 29-year-old from the Czech Republic, and the unseeded Golubic, a 28-year-old from Switzerland.
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