Van Rijthoven hits big time at Wimbledon

LONDON: Dutch wild card Tim van Rijthoven has taken a long, slow and agonising road to the last 16 at Wimbledon, which has included the best part of three years lost to injury.

On Friday, however, the 25-year-old buried all the painful memories as his dream Grand Slam debut continued with a straight-sets win over Nikoloz Basilashvili.

Ranked outside the top 250 at the start of the year, Van Rijthoven won the ‘s-Hertogenbosch grass-court title last month, defeating world number one Daniil Medvedev in the final.

In three rounds, he has fired 53 aces and been broken just three times. His 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 win over 25th seed Basilashvili on Friday followed his four-set triumph over US 15th seed Reilly Opelka, another monster hitter. “I never thought I would start off with an eight-match winning streak on the ATP Tour,” he admitted.