Third-seeded Russian Daniil Medvedev halted Christopher Eubanks’ dream run at Wimbledon on Wednesday in a five-set quarterfinal thriller in London.
Medvedev’s hard-fought 6-4, 1-6, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-1 victory in 2 hours and 57 minutes set up a semifinal showdown with No. 1 seed Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, who eliminated No. 76 Holger Rune of Denmark in straight sets.
Eubanks came within a tiebreak of reaching the final four at the All England Club. Medvedev broke the popular American’s serve three times in the final set to advance to his first Wimbledon semifinal.
“There was a moment in the match where I completely lost the game itself and he played well. I started to sink, I started to do a lot of mistakes, not serving well enough,” Medvedev said during his on-court interview.
“… But starting from the tie-break, I managed to play amazing and (I am) really happy about it.”
Medvedev made only 13 unforced errors in the match compared to 52 winners, including 28 aces. Over the final two sets, he won 89 percent of the points on his first serve.
“You have to serve well. You want to do a lot of aces, and that’s honestly the most important (thing),” Medvedev said. “Sometimes you can play on grass almost the best match of your life, but you can lose (in) three tie-breaks and then nobody will care that you played well.”
Eubanks offset 74 winners with 55 unforced errors and tallied 17 aces but also 10 double faults. He acknowledged the supportive crowd by making a heart with his hands while leaving the court.
Alcaraz also advanced to his first Wimbledon semifinal by winning a clash of 20-year-olds. His 2-hour, 23-minute match with Rune was the first Wimbledon men’s quarterfinal in the Open Era (since 1968) contested between two players under the age of 21.
Both players remained on serve until Alcaraz finally broke Rune’s serve in the ninth game of the second set. The World No. 1 broke Rune again in the fifth game of the final set and served out the match.
Alcaraz finished with 35 winners and 13 unforced errors, compared to 26 and 21 for Rune.
“From the second set on, I enjoyed it a lot,” said Alcaraz, who saved the one break point he faced. “I played my game and had a smile on my face, which is the key to everything. Thanks to winning the first set and screaming that huge ‘vamos’ helped me a lot and helped me find my best level.”
Friday’s other semifinal pits No. 2 seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia and No. 8 Jannik Sinner of Italy.
–Field Level Media