That couldn’t be better! Novak Djokovic and Radek Stepanek put up a huge entertainment for the crowd in Wimbledon.
Radek knew that his only opportunity with the Serbian was to continuously attack him as a baseline game would have been suicidal. So the Czech played the entire match at the net displaying his incredible skills.
Nole won the first 2 sets (6-4 6-3) giving the impression that he would have closed the match in 3. Radek disagreed. Stepanek won the 3rd set at the breaker and he put up a huge fight in the 4th set. Stepanek was going for everything diving all over the court and the crowd just loved that.
Eventually Djokovic won also the 4th set at tiebreak with one little additional drama. On the match point the Serbian did a great passing point that looked (and was called) out. The world no.2 challenged it, Stepanek kneed on the ground praying, but that was not enough. The ball was “in” and Djokovic finally won 6-4 6-3 6-7 (5) 7-6 (5).
Some numbers
Djokovic won 153 points vs. Stepanek’s 135. The Serb has never conceded a single break (he defended 5 break points) while Stepanek was broken twice in the first 2 sets. Match Stats
Djokovic: I thought to finish in 3 sets
Nole complimented his opponent “Credit to Stepanek for fighting in the third. I thought I could have finished the match in three sets. But I didn’t come out with my first serve when I needed to in the tie-breaker, and he came back. He fought. It was a very close, very even fourth set. It could have gone either way
I’m just happy to have spent this amount of time on the court, to play a lot of rallies, to return and to serve. Physically I feel fine. This can just help me mentally for the rest of the event.”
Next vs. Simon
Djokovic will play an inform Simon in the next round. Head to head is 6-1 for Nole that is the favorite to get to the fourth round.
GREAT VOLLEY FROM RADEK
THIS IS WHAT WE CALL TENNIS
