Raonic moves to round 3 in London with four-set win
Sixth seed from Thornhill, Ont., bounces back after a bit of a slow start to beat Russia’s Youzhny
LONDON — Canada’s 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 a 6-5 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 and 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, Novak Djokovic had to play all three sets at Wimbledon this time.
The three-time champion advanced to the third round by beating Adam Pavlasek, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1, two days after his opening match ended early when his opponent retired with an injury. 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 defeated Juan Martin del Potro, 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (3).
Third-seeded Roger Federer of Switzerland defeated Dusan Lajovic of Serbia, 7-6 (0), 6-3, 6-2, and, on the women’s side, topranked Angelique Kerber of Germany beat Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium, 7-5, 7-5.
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.
Two-time major champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, seeded seventh, advanced to the third round in the women’s draw along with ninth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska and 24th-seeded CoCo Vandeweghe.