India’s Divij Sharan Reaches His First Grand Slam Q/F at Wimbledon

Divij Sharan and Artem Sitak beat Jonathan Erlich and Marcin Matkowski in the third round of the men’s doubles draw.

File photo of Divij Sharan.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/@India_AllSports)

Divij Sharan reached his first Grand Slam quarter-finals of his career as he combined with Artem Sitak to stage yet another dramatic comeback after being down by two sets to defeat Jonathan Erlich and Marcin Matkowski at the Wimbledon Championships in London on Wednesday.

Sharan and New Zealand's Sitak prevailed 1-6, 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 over the Isralei-Polish combination after a gruelling men's doubles third round which lasted three hours and fifty minutes.

Reaching the third rounds at Australian Open this year and at French Open (2017) and US Open (2013) was the best performance for the left-hander till the recent win in Wimbledon.

It is the second consecutive win where Sharan and Sitak erased a two-set deficit to eke out a five-set thrilling win.

It was a mental battle out there. Even though we lost first two sets, we believed we could still win. We fought really hard and stayed strong mentally through the last three sets. There were many games where we were serving and were down but we played big and came back to hold those games. There was a lot of support for us from our respective teams and fans and that also helped.

Divij Sharan

Up next for them are American seventh seeded Mike Bryan and Jack Sock.