Nothing artificial about Djokovic’s crushing win

People observe the minute silence for the victims of the shooting in Tunisia last week, at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, London, Friday July 3, 2015.

Since 2006, only five teenagers have managed to reach the men’s third round at Wimbledon – and three of them went on to become Grand Slam champions: Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Marin Cilic.

When Novak Djokovic arrived here this year without a warm-up event and with the wounds of another near miss at the French Open still fresh, the consensus was that it would take something special for him to bounce back by successfully defending his Wimbledon title.

The fourth seed has also gone through his first three matches in straight sets. “I knew my game plan had to be solid on serve”, Kyrgios said after the match. “I definitely feel I’m playing better tennis than a year ago”.

A day after Rafael Nadal was stunned by Dustin Brown on Centre Court, Djokovic put in a clinical performance that never gave Tomic any hopes of a similar upset.

He said: “I’m pleased with the performances so far. I’m close to where I want to be”. “I’ve been playing better with each match, just as I wished”.

On Friday the Swiss matched Djokovic with a third straight-sets win, his 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 success over Spain’s Fernando Verdasco – an exercise in efficiency.

“I don’t fear anyone”, the 26th-seeded Kyrgios said.

No. Maria Sharapova moved on to the fourth round with a routine 6-4, 6-3 win over Irina-Camelia Begu. The first woman to make it to the fourth round was American CoCo Vandeweghe, who beat ex- US Open champion Samantha Stosur 6-2, 6-0.

The 16th-seeded Belgian beat Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 on Friday, reaching the final 16 of a Grand Slam for only the second time.

The battle on Court 2 between Kyrgios and Raonic featured two of the young stars of the game and two of the biggest servers in tennis.

“All three sets were decided in the tenth game”. He hit second serves at 124 miles per hour.

Kyrgios received a code violation in the second set after slamming his racket to the ground so hard it bounced over the back wall into the crowd. However, he had to turn it inside out after it was apparently deemed too colorful for the tournament’s all-white dress code. So he turned the headband inside out and wore it that way for the rest of the match. “I returned well today and created a lot of chances”.

The match turned in Kyrgios’ favour when he broke for a 6-5 lead in the second set.

Williams broke Watson to finish things, yet even that didn’t come easily. Raonic had 62 total winners, one more than Kyrgios, but the Australian had only 13 unforced errors, compared to 21 for the Canadian.

But he had few qualms about his decision not to play a grass tournament before today.

Grigor Dimitrov, David Goffin and Richard Gasquet were all straight-sets winners, along with Leonardo Mayer and John Isner, whose clash with Matthew Ebden was interrupted due to a ball boy collapsing.

The 20-year-old was momentarily involved with one fan who he felt was chiding him, and took inspiration from another, in a Batman T-shirt, who was urging him on at crucial points during his 5-7 7-5 7-6 (7/3) 6-3 win, which set up a shot at Gasquet next.