Wimbledon 2013: David Ferrer overcomes Ivan Dodig

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David Ferrer the fourth seed has found the going tough so far, and looked in for another long match when he dropped the first set against Ivan Dodig of Croatia. But in drawing level and then racing through the third and fourth sets he became the first man into the quarter-finals, by 6-7 7-6 6-1 6-1.

The Spaniard had dropped at least one set in all three previous matches and gone 2-1 down to the Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov before coming through strongly in the last two sets on Saturday.

Today he caused a certain amount of consternation by not turning up on the far-flung Court Two until almost ten minutes after the scheduled start-time of 11.30. In the early games he regularly held break points without being able to capitalise and should never have been taken to a tie-break. He then went 0-3 down and never recovered, netting a backhand to concede the set in just under an hour.

The second set tie-break went his way and from then on it was all downhill, taking the next two sets while conceding only two games.

Dodig had reached new heights by playing in a fourth round of a Grand Slam albeit with the benefit of two retirements by opponents, Philipp Kohlschriber and Igor Sijsling.

Ranked 49 in the world, he can look back with satisfaction, while Ferrer prepares for a quarter-final.