• Wimbledon, Day Nine

What They Said

Novak Djokovic was relieved to have got through in four sets © Getty Images

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• Gallery: Wimbledon: Day Nine

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Wimbledon Day Nine Gallery
Men's round-up: Federer dumped out

Novak Djokovic surged into his fifth straight Grand Slam semi-final after bringing Bernard Tomic's tremendous Wimbledon run to an end with a four-set win. A relieved Djokovic admitted he was pleased to get through the "cat and mouse" match.

"I'm delighted to be through, it's a great result," he told the BBC. "In the first set I played well but one bad service game in the second let him in and then he was the better player. I had some very difficult service games but I managed to hold on and win the match. He's such an unpredictable player - very young and hitting a lot of winners. He did not make a lot of errors from the baseline and that made my life very difficult. I tried to change the pace but he was better at that, so it was cat and mouse. I'm just pleased to get through."

Roger Federer crashed out of the tournament at the hands of the enigmatic Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who produced a remarkable fightback to come from two sets down to stun the six-time champion 3-6 6-7(3) 6-4 6-4 6-4. An ecstatic Tsonga said: "It was amazing, quite unbelievable. It's never easy to play against Roger Federer and to come from two sets down and win is amazing. It's crazy."

Roger Federer, meanwhile, was magnanimous in defeat, preferring to praise his opponent's "special performance" rather than find his excuses for his shock loss. The world No. 3 said: "Except the score, many things went right. I was pretty pleased with my performance today and at least it took a special performance to beat me. He played an amazing match and didn't give me much hope."

Andy Murray oozed class as he put Feliciano Lopez to the sword, surging into the semi-finals with a 6-3 6-4 6-4 victory. There was a brief period of worry, when Murray appeared to injury his hip but the Scot shrugged off the issue in his post-match interview. He said: "I thought it was good. Feliciano looked a little tired and struggled a bit with his movement, but I thought I served well throughout the match. I'm playing well - you get pushed more and more as the rounds go on, and I'll have to up my game. On the grass sometimes your feet can get caught, but I feel alright - I'll just have to wait and see. I'll get treatment for it for sure, but these things happen during Grand Slams. You've just got to try to get on with. I've played a little bit better every year here - I've been beaten in the semis for the past two years, and this time I want to go further."

Rafael Nadal overcame a tough challenge from Mardy Fish to set up an intriguing semi-final against Andy Murray. The Spaniard was fabulous in periods and was delighted to make it through to the last four, where he will play his 'good friend'. He said: "I started the first two sets playing very well but made mistakes in third and lost my intensity. But I started playing more aggressively in the fourth and I'm very happy to be in the semi-finals. It's always an honour to play against Andy, he has played fantastic in the last few months. He is playing well here and it's always a pleasure to play him. We play Playstation a lot outside the court and we are good friends."

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