Raonic rebounds after first-set loss to Youzhny
Sixth-seeded Ontarian piles up 27 aces to advance to Wimbledon’s third round
LONDON Milos Raonic advanced to the third round of Wimbledon with a 3-6, 7-6 (7), 6-4, 7-5 win over Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny on Thursday.
Raonic, the sixth seed from Thornhill, Ont., picked up a key break to take the lead in the third set. He later secured the victory with his 27th ace of the match.
The match, on the No. 2 court at the All England Club, took two hours 40 minutes to complete. Raonic, a finalist last year at Wimbledon, will next face 25th-seeded Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain.
Ramos-Vinolas needed five sets to complete a 7-5, 6-7 (6), 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Russia’s Andrey Rublev. The match lasted three hours 32 minutes.
Raonic and Ramos-Vinolas have split their two previous meetings. Raonic was victorious when they met in Davis Cup play in 2013 and Ramos-Vinolas defeated the Canadian in the round of 16 last year on clay at the French Open.
Meanwhile, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic had to play all three sets at Wimbledon this time.
The former champions both advanced to the third round on Thursday two days after their opening matches ended early when their opponents retired with an injury.
Federer was broken early in his match, but the seven-time champion recovered quickly and beat Dusan Lajovic 7-6 (0), 6-3, 6-2. Djokovic, a three-time champion, ousted Adam Pavlasek 6-2, 6-2, 6-1.
Djokovic won the Wimbledon title in 2011, ’14 and ’15, but he has not won a major title since completing a career grand slam at the 2016 French Open.
In his opening two matches at the All England Club, Djokovic has only lost eight games.
“It’s perfect — exactly what I want,” Djokovic said. “I don’t want to have any five-set matches in there.”
Djokovic will next face Ernests Gulbis. The unseeded Latvian beat Juan Martin del Potro 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (3).
Federer has lost 14 games so far and will next face 27th-seeded Mischa Zverev.
Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev, Grigor Dimitrov, Gael Monfils and David Ferrer also reached the third round. Ferrer advanced when opponent Steve Darcis retired with an injury while trailing 3-0.
Darcis is the eighth man to retire during a match this week.
The Belgian took a medical time out after 18 minutes of play and was unable to continue.
My expectations were a little bit different than to make one round here … That’s tennis, you know. Still, you can play well and you don’t have to win. That’s my case today.
One of the favourites in the women’s tournament, thirdseeded Karolina Pliskova, lost on Centre Court. Magdalena Rybarikova beat Pliskova 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 to reach the third round for the second time in 10 appearances.
Pliskova entered the tournament with a chance to take over the No. 1 ranking.
“My expectations were a little bit different than to make one round here,” Pliskova said.
“That’s tennis, you know. Still, you can play well and you don’t have to win. That’s my case today.”
Top-seeded Angelique Kerber also advanced to the third round, along with seventh-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova, ninth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska, 14thseeded Garbine Muguruza and 24th-seeded Coco Vandeweghe.
Also, American wild-card entry Bethanie Mattek-Sands injured her right knee during a point and retired from her second-round match.
Moving up toward the net in the opening game of the third set against Sorana Cirstea of Romania, Mattek-Sands slipped and fell.
She immediately clutched her right knee.
She could be heard screaming in pain and sobbing.
Two players previously eliminated from the tournament were handed fines on Thursday.
Bernard Tomic of Australia was fined roughly $19,000 for unsportsmanlike conduct two days after he spoke about feeling “a little bit bored out there” during his match.
Daniil Medvedev of Russia, who threw a handful of coins in the direction of the chair umpire after a second-round loss on Wednesday, was given three fines totalling $18,800.