Wimbledon: Novak Djokovic slips past 18-year-old and into semifinals

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Second-seeded Novak Djokovic trailed several times and took a hard tumble that seemed to leave him hurting, but he gathered his powerful baseline game and beat 18-year-old qualifier Bernard Tomic of Australia, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, on Wednesday to become the first Wimbledon men’s semifinalist.

Djokovic trailed in the third set when Tomic, an Australian who won three matches to come through qualifying, kept moving Djokovic from side to side. But in the final set, Djokovic’s constant depth of groundstrokes tired out the clever Tomic.

Tomic was the youngest man in the main draw and Djokovic has now made his fifth consecutive major tournament semifinal.

RELATED:

Wimbledon: Rafael Nadal’s foot is not broken, so it’s on with Mardy Fish

Maria Sharapova looks like the Sharapova of old as she storms into Wimbledon semifinals

-- Diane Pucin in Wimbledon, England