There is nothing like rain to help you when you are down and out in sport. Cricket teams pray for it when they are in heaps of trouble and on Friday, Novak Djokovic would have looked up to the heavens and did a little rain dance in his head, hoping the skies would open up. It did, and, therefore, Djokovic survived to fight another day at Wimbledon, having been outclassed in the first two sets of his third round match against American Same Querrey.
Coming off a brilliant victory over Andy Murray to clinch his first ever French Open title, the defending champion at the All England club was expected to march towards another title, considering, at the moment, there is nobody playing anywhere near his level, not even Murray, who despite reaching Grand Slam final after Grand Slam final, cannot seem to crack the Novak code.
Djokovic, the current holder of all four Grand Slams and heavy favourite to complete a calendar Grand Slam, looked like he meant business with comfortable wins in the first two rounds, and while the big-serving Querrey is always a threat on the grass courts, the No.28 seed wasn't expected to give the world number one too much trouble – maybe a set goes to a tiebreak, maybe.
Querrey certainly took one set to the tiebreak, the first one, winning it 8-6, before completely overwhelming the best men's tennis player in the world in the second set 6-1. With Djokovic teetering under the big game of the American, rain came to the Serbian's rescue, much like it had last year, when the heavens opened up to save him from a tricky situation against Kevin Anderson.
Djokovic found a way to get past that hurdle after resumption of play, and when the match returns on Saturday, it will not be a surprise if the great man does exactly that again. As good as Querrey might play, if Djokovic comes out and plays his best tennis, the match will soon be tied at two sets apiece and move into the fifth set. And when it comes to the big-pressure situations, there is no better player in the world at the moment than Djokovic.
It was a fitting end to an exciting day at Wimbledon, which saw Serena Williams survive a serious scare from American compatriot Christina McHale and Juan Martin Del Potro put all of those injury woes behind him to knock the No.4 seed Stanislas Wawrinka out of SW19.
Serena bounced back from losing the first set to eventually prevail 7-6 (9-7), 6-2, 6-4 in two hours and 29 minutes, while Del Potro and his power game was too much for Wawrinka, with the Argentine winning 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-2), 6-3.
Roger Federer was masterful in his straight set 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 win over Daniel Evans, with it putting out a Brit for the second straight round, after his victory over fairytale man Marcus Willis, but another former champion Venus Williams had to dig deep to see off the challenge from Daria Kasatkina 7-5, 4-6, 10-8.
The match of the day came on the No.2 Court, when Nick Kyrgios and Dustin Brown put on a five-set show, with Kyrgios, lost temper and all, coming through 6-7 (3-7), 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.
