By Martyn Herman
LONDON (Reuters) -Novak Djokovic reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the 16th time but it proved a hard day’s work at his Centre Court office as he ground past Australian Alex Di Minaur on Monday.
The 38-year-old Serb started abysmally and lost the opening set in 31 minutes but eventually gained control of a cagey battle to win 1-6 6-4 6-4 6-4 to keep alive his quest for a 25th Grand Slam title.
With Roger Federer watching from the Royal Box, the player whose record eight men’s titles Djokovic is trying to equal, Djokovic’s usually surgical game misfired badly early on.
The hustling and bustling Di Minaur continued to cause Djokovic headaches after that but the sixth seed found his range to win the next two sets full of attritional baseline rallies.
Even then Djokovic looked like getting dragged into a fifth set as Di Minaur jumped into a 4-1 lead in the fourth set but the Serb slammed the door shut just in time, winning five games in a row to take his place in the last eight.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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