Tennis – Iga Swiatek may not love the grass but relishes a battle whatever the surface and showed all that fight and bullish determination as she recovered to beat American Caty McNally 5-7 6-2 6-1 and reach the Wimbledon third round yesterday.
World number one Jannik Sinner demolished Australia’s Aleksandar Vukic 6-1 6-1 6-3 in a Centre Court masterclass to move ominously into the third round.
The Italian was streets ahead of the 93rd-ranked Vukic who barely laid a glove on the top seed in the opening two sets before saving face with some third-set resistance.
McNally, the world number 208, looked poised to cause an upset when she clawed her way back from 4-1 down to take the first set against the five-times Grand Slam champion.
At that point Swiatek’s mediocre record at the All England Club, where the Pole has never gone past the quarter-finals, seemed to be weighing heavily on her shoulders.
But rather than shy away from the scrap, the former world number one flicked a psychological switch that saw her come out for the second set transformed, upping her aggression and playing with a ferocity McNally simply could not handle.
She broke early in the second set and never looked back, losing only three more games to set up a clash with another American Danielle Collins.
“I started the match well so I knew that my game was there,” said Swiatek. “I knew that at the start of the second set I had to be more accurate. I just tried to improve and I’m happy it worked.”
The eighth seed may have her sights set far higher than the third round, but by reaching the last 32 she underlined her consistency on the big stage.
The 23-year-old is the third player this century to reach the third round in 22 consecutive women’s singles Grand Slams after Amelie Mauresmo and Serena Williams.
Whether such milestones are enough to persuade Swiatek she can excel on a surface that has so far proven difficult to master is yet to be determined.
With four French Open titles to her name, another at the US Open and two semi-final appearances in Australia, her unspectacular Wimbledon record stands out like a sore thumb.
As well as earning her spot in the next round, the match against her old playing partner offered a pleasing trip down memory lane.
“It’s pretty funny because I remember these matches pretty well,” she said of her junior days.
Sinner, bidding to win the title for the first time, never loosened his grip on a one-sided contest although he did need six match points to finish off Vukic in a prolonged final game.
There was never any chance of a repeat of last month’s French Open final when he squandered three match points in a spellbinding clash with Carlos Alcaraz though, and he duly slammed down his 12th ace as the light began to fade.
“I struggled a bit to close it out. I’m very happy, Centre Court is such a special occasion,” Sinner said.
“Yes, I enjoyed (the last game) because I won the game! If not, I don’t know. The match can change very, very quickly. If he breaks me there it can go long distance.”
Former women’s champion Elena Rybakina may have arrived very much under the radar but has reached the third round for the loss of a mere seven games, the 11th seed destroying Greece’s Maria Sakkari 6-3 6-1 in 62 minutes.
Czech Krejcikova, a surprise winner last year, found herself out on Court 2 where the 17th seed produced a typically businesslike display as she battled past American Caroline Dolehide, winning 6-4 3-6 6-2.
She will face a much more dangerous American next in the form of Emma Navarro after the 10th seed crushed Veronika Kudermetova 6-1 6-2.
With four of the top five women’s seeds already gone, the draw looks wide open for the likes of seventh seed Mirra Andreeva who beat Italian Lucia Bronzetti 6-1 7-6(4).
Nearly half of the 32 men’s seeds have perished before the third round with 13 failing to clear the first hurdle.
But they reasserted themselves yesterday.
Australia’s 11th seed Alex de Minaur beat Arthur Cazaux 4-6 6-2 6-4 6-0, while powerful Czech teenager Jakub Mensik, seeded 15, beat American Marcos Giron 6-4 3-6 6-4 7-6(4) to underline his credentials as a dangerous floater.
Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, playing in his 59th successive Grand Slam, may no longer be considered a genuine title threat but more than a decade since reaching his sole Wimbledon semi-final showed he is still a class act as the 19th seed beat tricky Frenchman Corentin Moutet 7-5 4-6 7-5 7-5.
Jack Draper’s hopes of joining the list of home-grown Wimbledon champions were snuffed out in spectacular fashion by Marin Cilic when the Croatian made a mockery of his low ranking to topple the fourth seed 6-4 6-3 1-6 6-4 in the second round.
Despite now plying his trade mostly on the second-tier Challenger circuit after his ranking went into freefall, plummeting outside the top 1,000 following knee surgery in 2023, Cilic made sure his return to Wimbledon for the first time in four years was memorable.
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