Wimbledon: Dennis Novak has to serve detention: Match against Milos Raonic adjourned

Dennis Novak’s third round game against Milos Raonic (Canada) in position 13 was abandoned on Friday evening due to darkness in the third set and postponed until Saturday. The Austrian qualifier is 6:7 (5:7), 6:4, 5:6 behind after 1:57 hours and another strong performance, but may serve directly during the continuation.

By Ulrike Weinrich from Wimbledon

A small wish was not fulfilled for Dennis Novak before his first rally against the former Wimbledon finalist Raonic. Actually, the duel between David from Wiener Neustadt and Goliath from Canada was scheduled for Court 1.

But because the match between Karolina Pliskova (Czech Republic/No. 7) and the Romanian Mihaela Buzarnescu (Romania/No. 29) on Friday evening took longer and longer, Novak and Raonic had to make way – on Court 12 Novak, who was experiencing his very personal tennis fairy tale in Wimbledon and came into the main field via the qualifiers, could not be deterred by this.

From the very beginning, the world rankings-171st defied the favourite and continued his five successful appearances in the past days. Novak was able to use his first break point right from the start and managed his service game for the 4:1 lead. But Raonic, already the world’s number three in 2016, but repeatedly shaken by injuries in recent years, beat back with the class of an experienced grass player – he equalled the score at 4-4.

In the tiebreak Novak also lost a three-point lead (4:1) and lost set one after 47 minutes. But the protégé of Günter Bresnik and Wolfgang Thiem was not shocked. He acted courageously and aggressively from the baseline and did not let himself be disconcerted by the raonic, which kept storming the net. The second round went to the underdog deservedly.

At the score of 5:6 in the third set, Novak then told the chief referee on request that he was in favour of a break-off due to the poor lighting conditions. Should the Austrian win against Raonic, he would be the worst professional in the world ranking since 2003, who would reach the round of the last 16 in the turf Mecca.