Top seed Iga Swiatek crashed out of Wimbledon in the biggest shock of this year’s Championships so far but Novak Djokovic avoided joining her through the exit door despite another below-par performance on Saturday.
Poland’s Swiatek, who clocked up her fifth Grand Slam title at last month’s French Open, was beaten 3-6 6-1 6-2 by Yulia Putintseva in the third round as she again struggled on grass.
“I know what I need to change, and I’ll do that,” the world number one told reporters after her 21-match winning streak came to an end on Court One.
“My tank of really pushing myself to the limits became suddenly empty. I was kind of surprised.”
Seven-time champion Djokovic moved into the fourth round but only after dropping the opening set to Alexei Popyrin.
The 37-year-old Serb, seeded two, stayed on course for a record 25th Grand Slam title with a 4-6 6-3 6-4 7-6(3) win to set up a clash with Danish dynamo Holger Rune.
“It was another tough match,” Djokovic, who also dropped a set against British wildcard Jacob Fearnley in the second round, said on court. “It was a very challenging match mentally today.”
“Each match it’s getting better,” added Djokovic, who is yet to win a title this year and needed knee surgery last month.
Britain was left with only one singles player out of the 19 who started as Alexander Zverev beat Cameron Norrie and China’s Wang Xinyu dumped out local favourite Harriet Dart.
Emma Raducanu will fly the flag alone for the hosts on Sunday and perhaps with that in mind she pulled out of her highly anticipated mixed doubles with Andy Murray.
Her decision, put down to protecting a sore wrist, effectively ended British great Murray’s illustrious Wimbledon career in rather anti-climactic fashion.