Greek top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, making his debut at the prestigious Wimbledon warmup event, belatedly moved through to the second round as he finished off home hope Kyle Edmund 6-3 7-5 having come off the previous night at 3-3 in the second set.
The rain has not Stefanos Tsitsipas in his stride he was to appear on Tuesday but there was no play due to rain and his match abandoned Wednesday night.
Tsitsipas needed seven match points to end home interest in the singles draw and set up a clash, later on Thursday, with Frenchman Jeremy Chardy.
Organisers have a packed schedule to get through on Thursday after Tuesday was washed out and only a handful of matches were completed on Wednesday. Three first-round matches were still to be completed at the start of play on Thursday.
Top-seed from Greece, Stefanos Tsitsipas beat France’s Jeremy Chardy in the third round to advance to the quarter-finals. Tsitsipas, who had to play twice after his first round against Briton Kyle Edmund was pushed back on account of rain on Wednesday, defeated Chardy 4-6, 7-6(0), 7-6(4) in two hours and 38 minutes.
Earlier, in his opening round against the Briton, Tsitsipas needed seven match points to move into the next round. With only one match spaced between his first and second, the 20-year-old looked sluggish to start his pre-quarters. Chardy capitalised on Tsitsipas’ initial tiredness to boost himself with a set lead. A second break of Tsitsipas’ serve in the second set offered Chardy the prospect of serving out the match in the 10th game of the set but it was not to be, as Tsitsipas powered his way back into the match. In the tie-break that followed, Tsitsipas served a bagel to Chardy to level the match.
The third set swung between the two players. In somewhat of a similarity with the second set, Tsitsipas broke Chardy’s serve early in the set and tried to serve for the match at 5-4. However, he was broken much like he had done with Chardy in the previous set. However, Chardy’s comebacks were curtailed in the tie-break as Tsitsipas dropped just four points to make his move ahead in the draw.
Tsitispas will play Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime in the quarter-finals. The eighth-seeded Auger-Aliassime, who played two matches as well, first defeated Bulgarian and former champion Grigor Dimitrov in the first round 6-4, 6-4 in 74 minutes. Later, in the more explosive second-round match, the 18-year-old from Montreal came from a set down to tame Nick Kyrgios 6-7(4), 7-6(3), 7-5 in two hours and 13 minutes.
The Canadian, who made his only Grand Slam main draw appearance at the 2018 US Open, will play Andy Murray’s doubles partner Feliciano Lopez in the semi-finals.
Auger-Aliassime took the first set by breaking his Greek opponent’s serve when leading 6-5 and Tsitsipas looked increasingly uncomfortable, taking a medical timeout to receive treatment on his shoulder in the second set.
The teenager saved three break points to take a 4-1 lead and hit a backhand out of Tsitsipas’ reach to break serve and win the match.
“He’s the most difficult opponent I’ve ever faced, and I think it’s going to take a couple of tries to beat him,” said Tsitsipas, who has faced Auger-Aliassime three times and never won.
“It’s upsetting, obviously, that he’s better than me. I have to accept that.”
Earlier in the day, Russian fourth seed Daniil Medvedev beat Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman 6-2 6-2 and will face France’s Gilles Simon , who beat Nicolas Mahut 7-6 (7-5) 5-7 7-6 (7-3), in the semi-finals.
