Kei Nishikori was dealt yet another injury blow as he was forced to retire during his fourth-round match against Marin Cilic at Wimbledon.
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“I could not really compete today”.
Cibulkova defeated Poland’s Radwanska en route to her first grass-court title at Eastbourne last month and emulated that result in a high-quality clash to secure her first Wimbledon quarter-final berth since 2011.
Cilic, the ninth seed at the All England Club, is now likely to face seven-time champion Roger Federer in the quarter-finals, with the Swiss two sets up against Steve Johnson on Centre Court.
Elsewhere, Kei Nishikori was two sets up on Andrey Kuznetsov, Nicolas Mahut was two sets up on Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Steve Johnson and Grigor Dimitrov were tied at one set all. After the third round it got worse.
The pair are now set to meet in the Wimbledon quarter-finals on Wednesday.
He broke Nishikori’s service in the third set after a first rain delay to go 3-0 up but lost his own after a second shorter pause and, racking up the unforced errors, never got back on top.
Pavlyuchenkova, who turned 25 on Sunday, was one of four Russians to reach the fourth round at Wimbledon – the most since 2009.
Nishikori, who was receiving treatment through the contest pulled out of the match with Cilic late on in the second set, with the scoreline at 6-1 5-1.
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The Japanese fifth seed, who swallowed a pill given by the trainer at the previous change of ends, shook his head at the umpire to indicate he could not longer continue before going up to Cilic to shake hands.
