"I don’t recall the last time I felt this miserable on returning games": Djokovic gives credit to Hurkacz, admits match was not 'enjoyable'

World number two Novak Djokovic has heaped praise on his fourth-round opponent Hubert Hurkacz at Wimbledon 2023.

The 36-year-old managed to beat the Polish tennis star in a tense encounter with a score of 7-6, 7-6, 5-7, 6-4 on Monday to book his place in the last-eight.

Talking after the match, Djokovic was full of praise for Hurkacz who made him feel ‘miserable’ with his powerful serve.

“Big credit to Hubert for playing an amazing match, tough luck for him today but he put up a great performance,” said Djokovic. “Honestly, I don’t recall the last time I felt this miserable on returning games to be honest due to his incredibly accurate and powerful serve.

“It was not really an enjoyable match for me I must say, but in the important moments - yesterday, last night - I was fortunate really to win that first set, I was 3-6 down in the tie-break. This match definitely could have gone a different way but I guess I held my nerves when it mattered and I’m happy to win.”

The praise was indeed justified as Hurkacz won 72 percent service points in the match. He was broken just once on the day and that was in the fourth set.

That’s not it as the 26-year-old also went on to produce 64 winners in the match, 20 more than his opponent despite ending up on a losing side.

On the other hand, the victory means that Djokovic will now be playing in his sixth consecutive quarterfinal at Wimbledon where he will be facing Russia’s Andrey Rublev on Tuesday.

He is on a 32-match winning streak in the competition as his last defeat came in 2017 where he lost to Czech Republic’s Tomas Berdych in the quarterfinal, courtesy of a forced retirement because of an arm injury.