Wimbledon: Federer moves alongside Navratilova after easy triumph

Roger Federer equalled the record for most grand slam singles wins by beating American Steve Johnson yesterday in the fourth round at Wimbledon.

Federer eased past Johnson 6-2 6-3 7-5 on Centre Court to draw level with Martina Navratilova’s record of 306 victories in major competition and will stand alone if he overcomes Marin Cilic in the quarter-finals.

The Swiss has also now reached the last eight 14 times at the All England Club, which levels the men’s Open era record for the tournament held by Jimmy Connors.

Federer is yet to drop a set at this year’s Championships and while Johnson, ranked 29th in the world, was expected to offer the first real test, the world No 3 was rarely troubled.

Novak Djokovic’s shock third-round exit on Saturday has been hailed as a boost to British No 1 Andy Murray’s chances, but the benefit may sooner be felt by Federer, who was due to meet the Serb in the semi-finals.

First, however, the 17-time grand slam champion will have to beat Cilic, who won in straight sets when they last met, at the US Open two years ago, and he also arrives in good form, having pushed Murray to a decider at Queen’s last month.

The world No 13 may also have fresher legs after he was made to play only 45 minutes for his win over Kei Nishikori, the fifth seed who was forced to retire through injury.

Nishikori was implored by his coach Michael Chang to stop earlier on Court Two, but he continued for almost two sets before withdrawing at 6-1 5-1 down.

The Japanese said afterwards this latest problem was a rib injury, which he first suffered in Halle three weeks ago.

Nishikori said: “It’s been not recovering well these two weeks. After the third round it got worse. I was hoping to get better, but it was too much pain on the court so I couldn’t really compete.

“I was thinking about it in the second set and even before the match I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to play 100 per cent.

“Every point I played it got worse. I didn’t want to, but I had to retire.”

Djokovic’s conqueror Sam Querrey continued his surprise run with a convincing 6-4 7-6 (7/5) 6-4 win over experienced Frenchman Nicolas Mahut.

It is the first time Querrey has made a grand slam singles quarter-final and the 28-year-old also becomes the first American man to do so since John Isner at the US Open in 2011.

Former champion Jonny Marray became the first British player through to the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, ahead of Murray, with an epic men’s doubles victory.

Sheffield’s Marray and Canadian partner Adil Shamasdin defeated Spain’s Marcel Granollers and Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay 6-3 4-6 6-4 3-6 14-12 on Court 7.

The wild card pair trailed 5-3 in the final set, but recovered and held three match points at 6-5.

They could not take any of them, but got another chance in the 26th game and this time they converted, with Granollers and Cuevas unhappy about spits of rain that had started to fall.

Marray and Shamasdin had beated defending champions Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau in round one. It is the first time Marray has been back in the last eight at Wimbledon since his remarkable title success with Dane Freddie Nielsen in 2012.