Saturday 20 / April / 2024
London: Novak Djokovic brushed past France's Adrian Mannarino 6-4, 6-3, 7-6(5) on Wednesday to book his place in the third round of Wimbledon.
The defending champion, aiming for his third consecutive title, played well within himself and was rarely troubled during the second-round match.
Mannarino, ranked 55, put up spirited resistance in the third set to force a tiebreak but was ultimately swept off Centre Court by the Serbian's laser-guided groundstrokes.
World number one Djokovic holds all four grand slam titles and has another historic mark in his sights.
The 29-year-old is aiming to become the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to achieve the calendar Grand Slam — winning the four majors in a single season.
Later, seven-time champion Roger Federer ended the fairytale Wimbledon run of British qualifier Marcus Willis with an emphatic 6-0, 6-3, 6-4 victory.
For once though, the storyline belonged to his opponent as the 772nd-ranked underdog Willis, the talk of the tournament so far, basked in the limelight on a day he will never forget.
Federer played the role of pantomime villain in a 25-minute first set as he denied Willis a game.
But thereafter the 25-year-old Briton, cheered on by his friends at courtside, played a full part in some entertaining action under the showcourt's closed roof.
When Willis, who got through six qualifying rounds and then beat Ricardas Berankis in round one, finally got on the scoreboard in the second game of the second set the roar could be heard all over the grounds.
He kept Federer on his toes with some audacious drop shots and slices and fought right to the end.
Federer looked a little relieved when he broke for a 5-4 lead in the third set and congratulated Willis warmly after his opponent sliced a final backhand long in the following game.
Sweet revenge
Austrian tyro Dominic Thiem took sweet revenge on unseeded Florian Mayer, dodging the showers to dispatch the veteran German 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 in just over 1-1/2 hours of cut-and-thrust Tennis.
Mixing his trademark power groundstrokes with dropshots and deft touches at the net, the 22-year-old number eight seed broke his opponent once in each set in a first-round match that was twice interrupted by rain.
Mayer, 32, beat the Austrian in their last grasscourt encounter — the semifinals of the Halle tournament earlier this month, which the German went on to win.
Thiem wrapped things up on his first match point when Mayer hit a service return long, the Austrian having benefited earlier in the game from a service ace that Hawkeye showed had just clipped the centre line.
Berdych wins
Tomas Berdych battled the elements and a gritty display by unseeded Croatian Ivan Dodig at a rain-ravaged Wimbledon, sealing a four-set victory he admitted should have been his the previous day.
The 10th-seeded Czech, on the hunt for a new coach after splitting with Dani Vallverdu following May's Italian Open, won 7-6(5), 5-7, 6-1, 7-6(2) — one of only two matches completed by mid-afternoon as the weather cut a swathe through the programme for the second day running.
"The situation right now, it's fine to me, and (a coach is) definitely something that I'm looking for," he told reporters, adding he wanted a long-term working relationship rather than one focused on individual tournaments.
"First of all, I should have been done (with the match) already yesterday," he said. "But... especially when my opponents finished yesterday, I think it's really good that we were able to finish the match."
The Czech, vocal in criticising how French Open officials managed frequent rain interruptions at Roland Garros earlier this month, next plays unseeded German Benjamin Becker.
Konta's first
British Number One Johanna Konta won her first Wimbledon match at the fifth attempt on Wednesday, seeing off Puerto Rico's Monica Puig 6-1, 7-5 after a rain delay.
Konta, who was ranked 126th in the world at last year's tournament, has risen quickly up the Tennis ladder to be seeded 16 this year.
Puig settled better after the rain interruption, holding her serve at the resumption in the fourth game of the second set from 40-15 up, and immediately breaking Konta in a match that started on Tuesday.
But Konta regrouped to break back in the eighth game and then again to claim victory in front of an enthusiastic home crowd.
Easy for Radwanska
Number three seed Agnieska Radwanska eased through her rain-delayed first-round match at Wimbledon on Wednesday, beating Ukraine's Kateryna Kozlova 6-2, 6-1.
The Pole raced into an early lead, breaking twice in the four first games before being pegged back by Kozlova, who did not seem in the least bit overawed despite making her debut under the roof on Centre Court.
Radwanska, who reached the final in 2012, has never lost a first-round match on the Wimbledon grass and she kept up that record, sealing victory on her third match point.
Happy Moore
Tara Moore praised the influence of her mental coach Tony Lekic after the Briton registered a first ever singles victory at a grand slam tournament when she beat Alison Van Uytvanck in the opening round.
Coming into the grasscourt tournament ranked 227th in the world, the wildcard overcame the Belgian ranked 100 places above her 6-3, 6-2 to set up a second round encounter against Russian 13th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova.
"It's been a great benefit. He doesn't just help me with on-court stuff. There's a lot of off-court stuff that people don't see, a lot of behind the scenes things that are tough to handle for a Tennis player," Moore told British media.
The 23-year-old will also team up with Switzerland's Conny Perrin for a women's doubles first round clash against Colombian Mariana Duque-Marino and Puerto Rican Monica Puig on Wednesday.
