Ferrer to face del Potro in Wimbledon quarter-finals

Fourth seed David Ferrer continued his battling run through the Wimbledon draw with a four-set win over Croatia’s Ivan Dodig to reach the quarter-finals.

The Spaniard, who has been troubled by an ankle problem, needed five sets to see off Alexandr Dolgopolov in the third round and dropped the opener on a tie-break today.

But he came out on top in a second-set tie-break and that proved to be the key moment in the Court Two encounter as Ferrer ran away with the match to win 6-7 (3/7) 7-6 (8/6) 6-1 6-1. Ferrer’s best run at Wimbledon came last year, when he made it to the quarter-finals, and in the last eight this time he will face Argentinian eighth seed Juan Martin del Potro.

Del Potro muscled his way into the quarter-finals with a powerful 6-4 7-6(2) 6-3 win over Italy’s Andreas Seppi.

The Argentine’s knee was heavily strapped following a nasty fall in his third-round match, but his slightly cumbersome movement was no barrier to a straight-sets demolition of the 28th-ranked Seppi. He broke in the seventh game of the first set before wrapping it up in 52 minutes, stayed solid to come through the second in a tiebreak, before breaking in the second game of the third set to effectively end the Italian’s resistance.

Andy Murray suffered a mini crisis of confidence and faced his first tiebreak of the tournament but recovered his nerve and timing to beat Russian Mikhail Youzhny 6-4 7-6(5) 6-1 to the Wimbledon quarter-finals.

With Laura Robson bowing out earlier in the day, number two seed Murray assumed his usual position as singles flag-bearer for the home country and he duly triumphed on a sun-drenched Centre Court against the 31-year-old making his 13th Wimbledon appearance.

Murray was untroubled in the first set but experienced the full range of emotions in a topsy-turvy second that featured two breaks of serve each. Youzhny had the early advantage in the tiebreak too but Murray produced some stunning shots to turn it round and sap the Russian’s spirit.

In his sixth successive Wimbledon quarter-final, Murray will face Spaniard Fernando Verdasco, who he has beaten eight times in nine meetings, and he remains on course for a final showdown with top seed Novak Djokovic.

Poland has waited 33 years for a male quarter-finalist at a grand slam but two arrived within a few of minutes of each other at Wimbledon on as Jerzy Janowicz and Lukasz Kubot set up an unlikely last-eight clash.

The big-serving Janowicz edged past Juergen Melzer 3-6 7-6 6-4 4-6 6-4, collapsing to the court in disbelief after finally subduing the Austrian veteran. Then 130th-ranked Kubot launched into his party piece can-can dance routine to celebrate a 4-6 6-3 3-6 6-3 6-4 victory over fellow outsider Adrian Mannarino of France.

Janowicz, seeded 24, struggled to get to grips with the left-handed Melzer in the early stages on the tight confines of Court 12, but gradually turned up the heat. Several exchanges with the umpire and even some back-chat with Melzer’s courtside team fired up the towering Pole who produced some ear-splitting roars after winning crucial points. When he broke Melzer’s serve to lead 3-2 in the fourth set

Janowicz seemed to have taken control but his concentration wavered and the 32-year-old Melzer hit back to drag an entertaining, and occasionally fractious, contest to a decider. This time Janowicz got the break and did not falter to go one round better than last year when he reached the third round on his grand slam debut after qualifying.

The winner of his match against Kubot, who benefited from a walkover against Rafa Nadal’s conqueror Steve Darcis in the second round, will be the first Polish man to reach a grand slam semi-final. Wojtek Fibak was the last Polish man to reach a grand slam quarter-final, losing three times in the last eight in 1980.