Spanish fourth seed David Ferrer reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the second successive year on Monday while Jerzy Janowicz and Lukasz Kubot set-up an all-Polish showdown for a place in the last four.
Ferrer fired 53 winners in his 6-7 (6-8) 7-6 (7-3) 6-1 6-1 win over Croatia’s unseeded Ivan Dodig and goes on to tackle either Argentine eighth seed Juan Martin del Potro or Andreas Seppi, the 23rd seeded Italian.
The 31-year-old Ferrer, who was defeated in the French Open final by compatriot Rafael Nadal last month, will be playing in his seventh consecutive Grand Slam quarter-final.
Ferrer insists that the ankle injury which he has carried into Wimbledon will not be a problem.
“There is a little bit of pain, but it’s normal. It’s impossible to play without any pain,” he said.
Janowicz, the 24th seed, defeated 31-year-old Jurgen Melzer, who was hoping to become the first Austrian man to reach the last eight.
The 22-year-old Janowicz’s 3-6 7-6 (7-1) 6-4 4-6 6-4 win was based on 16 aces and 34 winners as he reached his first Grand Slam quarter-final.
He was joined in the last eight just moments later by 31-year-old Kubot, the lowest-ranked player left at 130 in the world, who defeated France’s 111th-ranked Adrian Mannarino, 4-6 6-3 3-6 6-3 6-4.
The last Pole to reach the last-eight at Wimbledon was Wojtek Fibak in 1980.
Spain’s Fernando Verdasco also reached the quarterfinals with a 6-4 6-4 6-4 of Frenchman Kenny De Schepper.