London. Carlos Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev, two of the highest favourites to win Wimbledon, opened the match on Monday with straight-set victories and superior to the second spherical.
Third seed Alcaraz confronted a tricky check in the beginning of his title defence however managed to prevail 7-6(3), 7-5, 6-2 over Estonian Mark Lajal.
The 21-year-old Spaniard, who’s bidding so as to add a fourth Grand Slam trophy to his record of honours after profitable the French Open final month, misplaced serve halfway by means of a high-quality first set earlier than coming again to win within the tie-break.
Lajal broke Alcaraz once more early within the subsequent set however the world quantity 269 was unable to press dwelling his benefit and his opponent broke again instantly earlier than attacking once more within the eleventh recreation.
With the momentum shifting, Alcaraz continued so as to add factors to take a two-set lead and raised his recreation even additional within the third, breaking his opponent with an excellent backhand crosscourt winner and by no means seemed again to seal the victory.
“He performed a great match, clearly I used to be a bit shocked as a result of I have not had the possibility to see him play a lot. He is at an ideal stage, he is very younger, my age,” stated Alcaraz. “I am certain I am going to play in opposition to him much more on the tour and I am very pleased to get my first win on Centre Court docket this 12 months.”
Alcaraz stated he nonetheless feels a bit nervous on the venue the place he beat Novak Djokovic within the last 12 months in the past. “Stepping on this courtroom, it is essentially the most stunning courtroom I’ve ever performed on. I nonetheless get nervous after I play right here,” he stated.
Medvedev, the fifth seed, simply certified for the second spherical with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 victory over American Aleksandar Kovacevic on his favorite courtroom, La Uno.
The 28-year-old Russian, who was crushed within the semi-finals final 12 months by eventual champion Alcaraz, took one hour and 46 minutes to do away with the 88th-ranked New Yorker, who was unable to deal with his highly effective serve-forehand mixture.
“I’ve by no means misplaced on Court docket One but, so I hope I can play many extra matches on this courtroom,” a smiling Medvedev stated in a courtside interview. “Final 12 months I stated it was a disgrace I needed to go to Centre Court docket for the semi-finals and I misplaced.”
Medvedev, in search of his second Grand Slam title following his triumph on the 2021 US Open, hit 16 aces on his approach to victory over the 25-year-old Kovacevic.
In different males’s outcomes on the day, Norwegian Casper Ruud beat Australian Alex Bolt 7-6, 6-4, 6-4, and Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov beat Serbian Dusan Lajovic 6-3, 6-4, 7-5.
Then again, it was not a great day for Latin American tennis gamers. Chileans Nicolás Jarry and Christian Garín fell in three units to Canadian Denis Shapovalov and Chinese language Shang Juncheng, respectively, whereas Argentine Sebastián Báez misplaced 6-2, 6-3 and 6-4 to American Brandon Nakashima.
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– 2024-07-02 21:29:42
