Predicted men’s quarter-final line-up for Djokovic, Alcaraz and more

WIMBLEDON — No one wants to forego 13 days of competition, but increasingly the men’s singles draw at Wimbledon feels like a pre-amble to a final between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic.

Nicolas Jarry made sure there was some interest in his third-round clash with Alcaraz, serving 15 aces and keeping the world No 1 out on court for just short of four hours, before eventually succumbing in four sets.

Djokovic is yet to drop a set en route to the fourth round, although he did admit that a blip in the third set against Stan Wawrinka, who forced him to a tie-break, was a wake-up call of sorts.

Quarter-final predictions

• Alcaraz (1) vs Rune (6)
• Lehecka vs Tsitsipas (5)

• Sinner (8) vs Shapovalov (26)
• Bublik (23) vs Djokovic (2)

Top half

Carlos Alcaraz (1) vs Matteo Berrettini

This looks like an absolute classic in the making. Alcaraz is the 2023 Queen’s champion while Berrettini won that same tournament for the two previous years, and reached the Wimbledon final two years ago.

Previous meetings between this pair tend to be good to watch too. All three have gone the distance including a brilliant five-setter in Australia 18 months ago, won by Alcaraz.

Holger Rune (6) vs Grigor Dimitrov (21) or Frances Tiafoe (10)

Dimitrov has a two-set lead over Tiafoe going into Sunday as rain curtailed their match. Rune meanwhile will be glad of a day of rest after five sets against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.

Daniil Medvedev (3) vs Jiri Lehecka

After reaching a first grand slam quarter-final in Australia early this year, Jiri Lehecka has another career-best major to his name at Wimbledon on a surface where he is starting to look quite comfortable.

Medvedev too showed a propensity for playing on grass last year in his maxed out pre-Wimbledon schedule, a tournament from which he was banned. The Russian is back this year though and a popular figure at SW19, but has never won a fourth round match here and never played

Stefanos Tsitsipas (5) vs Christopher Eubanks

Christopher Eubanks has hit 126 winners so far at Wimbledon and shows a fearlessness that comes from winning a title in Mallorca and being on an eight-match unbeaten streak, unphased by the partisan crowd that watched him knock out British No 1 Cameron Norrie.

Tsitsipas had a similar even more intense experience in the previous round in his two-day thriller against Andy Murray, and may be glad to go a little more under the radar against Eubanks, who at 6ft 7in will bring an enormous serve to go with his surfeit of baseline winners.

Bottom half

Jannik Sinner (8) vs Daniel Elahi Galan

Sinner has already dispatched two South Americans at Wimbledon this fortnight in the shape of Argentina’s Juan Manuel Cerundolo and Diego Schwartzman.

The Italian is becoming one of the grass-court cognoscenti too, having beaten Carlos Alcaraz en route to the quarter-finals last year.

Making it further than the last eight of a major remains uncharted territory but he has an excellent chance here: his only previous meeting with Galan saw Sinner emerge a comfortable 7-5, 6-0 victor.

Roman Safiullin vs Denis Shapovalov (26)

Denis Shapovalov should make light work of Roman Safiullin, against whom he has won four of the five sets they have contested at tour level, but if there is one thing to know about the former, it is that he is more than capable of losing when expected to win.

That said, Wimbledon is his best grand slam by results, having reached the semi-finals here two years ago – a result he followed up with defeat to unseeded Brandon Nakashima.

Andrey Rublev (7) vs Alexander Bublik (23)

Two men born in Russia, one who now represents no country at all due to neutrality regulations and the other who now represents Kazakhstan after being offered support by them in 2016.

Rublev, the Russian No 1 who now lives in Spain, is no great fan of the grass but is making it work at SW19 this year, beating David Goffin, Aslan Karatsev and Max Purcell to reach the fourth round for a second time.

But if he is to reach another quarter-final, which would be his eighth in slams, he will have to reverse the defeat he suffered at Bublik’s hands just a couple of weeks ago in the Halle final.

Hubert Hurkacz (17) vs Novak Djokovic (2)

This is surely the biggest test of Novak Djokovic’s grass-court form so far, having come into Wimbledon with nothing more than an exhibition match against Frances Tiafoe at the Hurlingham under his belt.

Hurkacz has the honour of being the last man to beat Roger Federer at Wimbledon, but told i last year that he hopes he will be known for more than that. Knock out Djokovic, who has not lost on Centre Court since 2013, and he will have an even bigger feather in his cap.