Shapovalov bows out in Wimbledon's 4th round as last Canadian remaining in singles draw

Canada's Denis Shapovalov was ousted from the men's draw at Wimbledon after suffering a fourth-round, four-set loss to Roman Safiullin of Russia on Sunday in London.

Safiullin, ranked 92nd in the world, downed Shapovalov, of Richmond Hill, Ont., 3-6, 6-3, 6-1, 6-3 on the No. 2 Court at the All England Club.

The Canadian struggled with a knee injury and laboured through the final three sets. A limp was noticeable as he walked off the court following the loss.

"I felt sore the whole time. But actually, yeah, I was getting more tired in the glutes and around the knee, the quads and everything, from the beginning of the match. It was getting worse and worse. I think as soon as other parts get tired, just have more and more impact on the knee," said Shapovalov. "As the match went on, it just became unbearable."

WATCH | Shapovalov falls to Safiullin:

Canada's Denis Shapovalov eliminated from Wimbledon

1 year ago

Duration 1:52

The Canadian struggled after taking the opening set and looked to be limping throughout the match.

The 24-year-old Shapovalov says the injury is years old, but it has been flaring up in recent months.

"[It's] definitely something that I need to fix fully. Maybe do the full treatment on it. Take more time off of tennis to really fix it. Because, [doctors] basically said until I get stronger it's going to kind of be like this. That's if I want to keep playing," he said.

"Obviously with surgery it would be much longer," he said.

Shapovalov was the last Canadian competing in the singles competition at Wimbledon.

The men's quarterfinals established Sunday were No. 7 Andrey Rublev against Novak Djokovic or No. 17 Hubert Hurkacz, and No. 8 Jannik Sinner against Safiullin.

Fernandez, American partner out of doubles play

Also Sunday, Leylah Fernandez, of Laval, Que., and American partner Taylor Townsend were eliminated from women's doubles play after losing their second round match 6-4, 7-6, 6-3 to Caroline Garcia of France and Luisa Stefani of Brazil.

Fernandez and Dutch partner Wesley Koolhof advanced to the second round in mixed doubles with a 7-5, 7-5 win over Angel Chan of Taiwan and Fabrice Martin of France on Sunday.

Fernandez and Koolhof will next play the Great Britain duo of Jonny O'Mara and Olivia Nicholls.

Swiatek makes quarterfinals for 1st time

Top-seeded Iga Swiatek saved two match points Sunday and reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals for the first time with a 6-7 (4), 7-6 (2), 6-3 victory over Belinda Bencic at Centre Court.

Swiatek has won three championships at Roland Garros, and one at the U.S. Open, but she never before had been past the fourth round at the All England Club. Last year, she had a 37-match winning streak snapped during a third-round Wimbledon loss.

So comfortable on the red clay of Paris, so capable on the hard courts in New York — and at the Australian Open, where she has made it to the semifinals — Swiatek is just not quite the same player yet on the green grass used at the year's third Grand Slam tournament.

Against the big-hitting Bencic, the singles gold medallist at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Swiatek certainly had her chances to take control far earlier than she did.

Six times in the first set, she held a break point but failed to cash in. Two came when she was a point away from owning the first set while ahead 5-4, but after Swiatek did not convert either, Bencic got into a tiebreaker and raced to a 6-1 lead before sealing it.

Swiatek headed to the locker room after that set and seemed to be back to her best immediately, finally breaking and eventually going up 3-1. But she let that advantage slip away, dropped the next three games, and suddenly needed to erase that pair of match points while behind 6-5.

Once past that key stretch, Swiatek straightened things out in that tiebreaker. From 2-all, she reeled off five consecutive points, the last of which was a double-fault by Bencic, to send the contest to a third set.

Bencic screamed after missing a forehand to hand over a break point, then double-faulted for the 10th time to gift-wrap another 3-1 lead for Swiatek in the deciding set. Swiatek protected that margin this time, and 23 minutes later — about an hour after being a point from losing — she was punching the air after delivering a cross-court forehand winner to end it.

Djokovic vs. Hurkacz: to be continued...

Novak Djokovic will need to put in some work to get to the Wimbledon quarterfinals as he seeks a fifth consecutive title and eighth overall.

Djokovic took the first two sets 7-6 (6), 7-6 (6) — after trailing in each tiebreaker — against 17th-seeded Hubert Hurkacz on Sunday night at Centre Court before their fourth-round match was suspended because it was getting too late to continue to play.

They did not start until about 8:50 p.m. because the preceding match lasted about three hours. After Djokovic claimed the second set when Hurkacz sent a forehand wide at 10:35 p.m., chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani announced to the crowd: "Ladies and gentlemen: Play suspended."

Local rules prevent Wimbledon matches from extending past 11 p.m., and so matches that approach that time often will be halted after a set ends.

They'll resume the fourth-rounder on Monday, with the winner to face No. 7 Andrey Rublev for a spot in the semifinals.

Djokovic could have been facing a much tougher night's sleep had things gone slightly differently.

Hurkacz — whose victory over Roger Federer in the 2021 Wimbledon quarterfinals was the last outing of the 20-time Grand Slam champion's career — pulled ahead 6-3 in the opening tiebreaker. That gave him a trio of set points.

But Djokovic stole the next five points on mistakes off Hurkacz's racket: a backhand into the net; a forehand return into the net; a forehand into the net; a backhand into the net; a forehand return that landed long.

Hurkacz then was up 5-4 in the next tiebreaker, but never got closer that time, and Djokovic converted his second set point.

Earlier in that set, Djokovic lost a point when he lost his balance and his momentum carried him into the net. He and Hurkacz both laughed about it and threw their arms around each other's shoulders.

The 36-year-old Djokovic is trying to achieve all sorts of milestones during this fortnight. In addition to trying to equal Federer's men's records for most Wimbledon championships in a row in the Open era (also shared with Bjorn Borg) and most in a career (Martina Navratilova won nine women's trophies for the overall mark), Djokovic also can collect a 24th Grand Slam title.

He got No. 23 at the French Open last month to break a tie with Rafael Nadal for the men's mark and pull even with Serena Williams for the most by anyone in the Open era. Margaret Court won 24 across the amateur and professional eras.

Azarenka of Belarus booed after defeat

Victoria Azarenka said it "wasn't fair" that she was booed at Wimbledon after her loss to Ukrainian rival Elina Svitolina.

Azarenka, who's from Belarus, had just lost a third-set tiebreaker and - knowing that Svitolina does not shake hands with Russian and Belarusian players after matches in protest of Russia's invasion of Ukraine - walked directly to the umpire to shake hands.

The two-time Grand Slam champion also seemed to give a slight wave to Svitolina, who won 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (9).
But as she gathered her equipment and began walking off No. 1 Court - where the crowd had been rooting for Svitolina - boos rained down.

It wasn't clear if fans thought Azarenka snubbed Svitolina, but the Belarusian shook her head as she walked off and banged her hands or fists together over her head.

At the French Open, it was the other way around for Ukrainian players. Marta Kostyuk was booed when she didn't shake hands at the net with Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus. Svitolina said she was also booed in Paris.

"For me personally, I think the tennis organizations, they have to come out with a statement that there will be no handshake between Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian players," Svitolina said. "I don't know if it's maybe not clear for people. Some people not really know what is happening. So I think this is the right way to do."

The 33-year-old Azarenka, who moved from Belarus to the United States as a teenager, said she's always had a good relationship with Svitolina.

"But what can I say about the crowd? There is nothing to say," Azarenka said. "She doesn't want to shake hands with Russian, Belarusian people. I respected her decision. What should I have done? Stayed and waited? Like, I mean, there's no thing that I could do that would have been right, so I just did what I thought was respectful towards her decision."

The other quarterfinal on the top half of the women's bracket will be No. 4 Jessica Pegula vs. 2019 French Open runner-up Marketa Vondrousova.