Djokovic sees off Hurkacz to reach quarters again, Jabeur crushes Rybakina

Defending champion Novak Djokovic was temporarily knocked off course by big-serving Pole Hubert Hurkacz but quickly got back in the groove on Monday to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals.

Having edged two tight tiebreaks late on Sunday before being beaten by the tournament's strict 11pm curfew, the 36-year-old returned hoping for a quick completion of the match.

Instead, he dropped his first set of the tournament before recalibrating and sealing a 7-6(6) 7-6(6) 5-7 6-4 victory.

His 100th match at Wimbledon was not vintage Djokovic but as he almost always does the second seed found a way through the storm to preserve his 10-year unbeaten record on Centre Court.

He has now moved equal in second place with Jimmy Connors for Wimbledon quarterfinals reached and will face Russia's seventh seed Andrey Rublev in his 14th on Tuesday.

Remarkably the Serbian has now reached 56 Grand Slam quarterfinals, second behind only Roger Federer.

It was Hurkacz who brought down the curtain on record eight-time Wimbledon champion Federer's career when he beat the Swiss in the last eight two years ago.

The 26-year-old's destructive game could easily have done for Djokovic too as he bombed down eight more aces to go with the 23 he belted past the Serb on Sunday night, one of them clocked at 141mph.

“He put up a great performance,” a relieved Djokovic said on court after keeping his bid for a fifth successive Wimbledon title and eighth in all, said on court.

“Honestly, I don't recall the last time I felt this miserable on returning games to be honest, because of his incredibly accurate and powerful serve.

“I mean he's got one of the best serves in the world and it's so difficult to read it.”

It was a case of better late than never for Christopher Eubanks as the gentle American giant was roared on to a 3-6 7-6(4) 3-6 6-4 6-4 win over Greek fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in the fourth round of Wimbledon on Monday.

Aged 27, Eubanks is no spring chicken but after finally making it into the Wimbledon main draw for the first time this year, he ensured he enjoyed a run to remember as he made it into the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam for the first time with a rousing win over the Greek maverick.

Ons Jabeur set up a women's quarterfinal repeat of last year’s showpiece against Elena Rybakina after crushing out-of-sorts former champion Petra Kvitova 6-0 6-3 in a Centre Court demolition job.

Tunisian sixth seed Jabeur had to come from a set down against Bianca Andreescu on Saturday but had no such problems on a blustery afternoon as she raced through the first set in 22 minutes, almost unchallenged.

Her crowd-pleasing variety of slice and change of pace and angle left the 2011 and 2014 champion flailing. The ninth-seeded Czech had the briefest of recoveries in the second set but it did not last and Jabeur finished off in style, breaking to love.

Third-seeded Kazakh Rybakina, who beat Jabeur in three sets in last year’s final, went through after Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia retired at 4-1 down in the first set with a back injury.

Second seed Aryna Sabalenka continued her march towards a second Grand Slam title this year with a comfortable 6-4 6-0 victory over Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova to power into the quarters.