Tomic edges out Gasquet in Wimbledon thriller

Bernard Tomic secured his place in Wimbledon’s second week after winning a wonderful match against ninth seed Richard Gasquet.

Much has been said of the absence of Tomic’s coach and father, John, owing to an ATP suspension for an alleged assault, which is denied, and the 20-year-old started the week by criticising the game’s governing body.

The Australian ended it with tennis at the top of the agenda though, with his 7-6 (9/7) 5-7 7-5 7-6 (7/5) third-round success following his earlier triumphs against Sam Querrey and James Blake.

“I’m very, very happy,” Tomic said. “It’s a huge win for me. “I played very well today and I needed to against Richard. The last two times he beat me, unfortunately. This time I was very happy to win but I played very good tennis.”

Tomic faces another tough draw in the last 16, where he will take on seventh seed Tomas Berdych after the Czech came from a set down to beat fellow big-server Kevin Anderson 3-6 6-3 6-4 7-5.

Mikhail Youzhny set up a fourth-round clash with second seed Andy Murray by winning his rearranged clash against Viktor Troicki 6-3 6-4 7-5 on Court Two.

Fernando Verdasco will play Kenny De Schepper next week after they today overcame Ernests Gulbis and Juan Monaco respectively.

Meanwhile, Lukasz Kubot beat Benoit Paire and 12th seed Kei Nishikori overcame Andreas Seppi. Croatian Ivan Dodig also went through after Dutch opponent Igor Sijsling retired when 6-0 6-1 1-0 behind on Court 18.