Djokovic gets past van Rijthoven to reach Wimbledon quarters

WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — Even knowing what an unusual Wimbledon this has been, what with so many unexpected results and new faces popping up, and so few top seeds — and major champions — remaining, surely Novak Djokovic would not lose to a wild-card entry making his Grand Slam debut, would he?

If it did not quite seem plausible, it did at least become vaguely possible a tad past 9:30 p.m. on Sunday night under the closed roof at Centre Court, when 25-year-old Dutchman Tim van Rijthoven — ranking: 104th; lifetime tour-level victories: eight, all in the past month — had the temerity to smack a 133 mph ace past Djokovic and tie their fourth-round match at a set apiece.

All of nine minutes later, the time it took Djokovic to grab 12 of the next 15 points, and the next three games, both plausibility and possibility took a hike. Soon enough, the third set was his, and not much later, so was the fourth, and the match, a 6-2, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 result that gave the tournament's No. 1 seed a 25th consecutive grass-court victory at the All England Club and a place in his 13th Wimbledon quarterfinal.

“Novak did his Novak thing,” van Rijthoven said, “and played very, very well. He had all the answers.”

Beforehand, van Rijthoven had said: “I’ll go into that match thinking I can win.” Might have still had that sense Sunday evening. If only briefly.

Eventually, the only true question was whether Djokovic would wrap this one up in time, because there is an 11 p.m. curfew. Running up against that would have required them to resume Monday.

“Whew. I am lucky,” Djokovic said after closing the deal with 20 minutes to spare. “It's never really pleasant if you can't finish the match in the same day. Glad I did.”

They did not begin playing until