Relieved Sinner through to quarters as Dimitrov retires, Djokovic grinds on
Dimitrov, the 19th seed, won the opening two sets and held serve with an ace in the third but then fell to the ground, saying: 'my pec, my pec' as a concerned Sinner walked round the net to ask what was wrong.
Sinner stayed by the side of Dimitrov who shed tears while he received treatment and the Bulgarian eventually threw in the towel and walked off to a standing ovation from the Centre Court crowd.
'I don't know what to say because he's an incredible player. I think we all saw this today,' Sinner said of his opponent, who had withdrawn from his past four Grand Slams with injuries.
'He's been so unlucky in the past couple of years. He's an incredible player, a good friend of mine also, and we understand each other very well off the court too.
'Seeing him in this position, if there would be a chance that he could play in the next round, he would deserve it. Now I hope he has a speedy recovery. Very, very unlucky from his side.
'I don't take this as a win at all — just an unfortunate moment to witness for all of us.'
Sinner arrived for the clash having not dropped serve in 36 games but Dimitrov broke him on the first attempt to grab a 2-0 lead and the elegant veteran played near-flawless tennis to close out the opening set and leave the crowd stunned.
Troubled by a right elbow problem after a fall earlier in the clash, Sinner took a medical timeout five games into the second set after being jolted again by Dimitrov, who shook off dropping his own serve late on to double his lead.
Pushed into a corner, Sinner came out fighting but the match ended in anticlimactic fashion in the third set and the Italian now faces American 10th seed Ben Shelton in the quarterfinals.
Novak Djokovic reached the quarters for the 16th time but it proved a hard day's work at his Centre Court office as he ground past Australian Alex de Minaur on Monday.
The 38-year-old started abysmally and lost the opening set in 31 minutes but eventually assumed control of a cagey battle to win 1-6 6-4 6-4 6-4 to keep alive his quest for an unprecedented 25th Grand Slam title.
With Roger Federer watching from the front row of the Royal Box, the player whose record eight men's titles Djokovic is trying to equal, the sixth seed's usually surgical game malfunctioned early on as he dropped serve three times.
The hustling and bustling De Minaur continued to cause Djokovic headaches with his shot-placement and movement but the Serb found his range to win the next two sets full of attritional baseline rallies.
Even then Djokovic looked like getting dragged into a fifth set as De Minaur jumped 4-1 ahead in the fourth and had a point for a 5-1 lead, but he slammed the door shut just in time, winning five games in a row to take his place in the last eight where he will face Italian 22nd seed Flavio Cabolli.
'I don't know how I'm feeling to be honest. I'm still trying to process the whole match and what happened on the court. It wasn't a great start for me, it was a great start for Alex,' a weary Djokovic said on court.
'He was just managing the play better from the back of the court and I didn't have many solutions. I was very pleased to hang tough in the right moments and win this one.'
Djokovic has now won 43 of his last 45 matches at Wimbledon and not since 2017 has he failed to reach the final.
The two losses were against Carlos Alcaraz in the last two finals, but for half an hour on Monday it looked as though Old Father Time might finally be catching up with him.
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