By Nick Georgandis
Photo Credit: Mark Howard
(March 30, 2011) Here’s how dominant Novak Djokovic has become in 2011: Victor Troicki was praised for lasting 83 minutes against him in Tuesday’s fourth-round match at the Sony Ericsson Open.
Djokovic cruised to his 23rd straight win, his 21st of this season, by defeating his fellow Serbian, 6-3, 6-2. Djokovic broke Troicki three times to pull away in the match, to advance to the quarterfinals against South Africa’s Kevin Anderson, an impressive winner over John Isner earlier in the day.
Djokovic has played Anderson before and commented, "It's not a nice memory, definitely. But, you know, I will have an opportunity to get my revenge in the same court where I lost in 2008. But, you know, he keeps on playing really well on these courts, and you've got to give him credit for that. He beat some very good players. Big serve, very aggressive. So, you know, tomorrow night we are going to play where conditions are going to be a little bit slower, which I guess is a little bit better for me."
The last time an ATP player started this hot was when Ivan Lendl rocketed to a 25-0 start in 1986. Lendl began that year by winning four straight tournaments before losing in the finals at Chicago to Boris Becker. Lendl lost just six times that season, against 74 wins and won nine titles, including Roland Garros and the US Open.
Djokovic wasn’t the only Top 5 player cruising to a quick victory. Top seed Rafael Nadal brought the pain to upstart Alexandr Dolgopolov in a convincing 6-1, 6-2 win.
It was a tough situation for Dolgopolov, who had to wrap up his win over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga earlier in the day after that match was postponed Monday night during the third set.
It’s the second time this year that Dolgopolov has taken down Tsonga, this time in a marathon 6-7(20, 6-4, 7-5 victory. In starting the season 16-8, Dolgopolov has gone an impressive 5-4 against Top 20 players.
Dolgopolov went down in 59 minutes to Nadal, double-faulting four times and never even getting Nadal to break point, much less actually breaking the top player in the world.
Nadal will take on seventh seed Tomas Berdych, who had to reach down deep to outlast Germany’s Florian Mayer, 6-3, 2-6, 7-6(4). Eight double faults – five in the third set - nearly caused Berdych to self-destruct, but he hung on in the tie-breaker to advance.