Swiss miss for Stan as Rafa wins in quicktime

STAN WAWRINKA admitted that his knees were not up to playing on grass as he saw his hopes of the career Grand Slam crushed for another year by Daniil Medvedev of Russia.

The catalogue of woe suffered by the No.5 seed at this South West London venue continued when he was ambushed on Centre Court by the impressive 21-year-old by a 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 scoreline.

You could say this was an unlucky 13th appearance at Wimbledon for Wawrinka if his previous 12 hadn’t been so similarly ill-starred.

Only twice reaching as far as the quarter-finals, this was his sixth first round defeat, and came hot on the heels of a first round loss to eventual winner Feliciano Lopez at Queen’s.

“It’s not something new,” said the Swiss. “End of last year and also in Australia.

“Grass is not the best surface for my knee. I need to figure it out what’s the problem now and only come back when I feel no pain.”

Some people think Rafael Nadal has some in-built aversion to grass courts too, but his dismissal of John Millman was more redolent of the five Wimbledon finals he reached between 2006 and 2011 than the three times in his last four appearances here when he has crashed to players whose ranking requires three digits.

This was a masterpiece of controlled spin and power, a 6-1, 6-3, 6-2 win in one hour and 44 minutes, the quickest win of Nadal’s Wimbledon career.

The Spaniard had said on the eve of this tournament that his knees would tell him whether he is capable of playing well on grass this year. So what were they telling him?

“That my knees are ready for the second round probably,” said Nadal, who now faces Donald Young of the USA.

The day ended with cheers as Aljaz Bedene, the Slovenian-born Brit, closed out a five-set win against the towering Ivo Karlovic.