Clinical Del Potro reaches Wimbledon Rd 4 without trouble
LONDON : Fifth seed Juan Martin del Potro overcame service troubles and Benoit Paire’s fine serve-and-volley game to beat the Frenchman 6-4, 7-6(4), 6-3 on Court Two and reach the Wimbledon fourth round for the fourth time on Saturday.
The big Argentine world number four, who has yet to drop a set, looked on for a routine win before meeting sterner resistance in the second set from Paire, who delighted the crowd with his drop shots and a break of serve to go 4-2 up.
Del Potro immediately broke back after a slip by Paire and fears he might have hurt his heavily bandaged knee, but the Frenchman resumed and saw the set through to the tiebreak, but lost it 7-4.
Del Potro marched into a 3-0 lead in the deciding set only to allow Paire back to 3-3 with a broken service game that included three double faults. However, the Argentine broke again and took it in straight sets.
Big-hitting Canadian Milos Raonic, the 2016 finalist, also reached the fourth round after beating Austrian Dennis Novak 7-6(5) ,4-6, 7-5, 6-2. Raonic fired 28 aces and won 87 percent of points on his first serve.
In women’s draw, Latvia’s 12th seed Jelena Ostapenko needed just 62 minutes to put away Russia’s Vitalia Diatchenko in a 6-0, 6-4 victory.
On Friday, defending champion Roger Federer advanced to the last 16 without dropping a set after a 6-3 7-5 6-2 win over German Jan-Lennard Struff. Federer, seeking a record ninth Wimbledon title, eased through the first set before the big-serving Struff put up more of a fight in the second. But Federer wrapped it up clinically.