Alcaraz Soars Past Vukic in Wimbledon Second Round

Alcaraz in gradual acceleration

It took him a set to find his cruising speed. As in his first round, Carlos Alcaraz was pushed to the tie-break to start Wednesday, and once he won it, he took off. The world number 3 and defending champion at Wimbledon thus took the measure of his opponent in the second round, the Australian Aleksandar Vukic, world number 69, in three sets (7-6, 6-2, 6-2) and 1h48 on court number 1. To reach the second week, he will be entitled to a very interesting first test against Frances Tiafoe, a large winner against Borna Coric (7-6, 6-1, 6-3).

If the second and third sets were a long, quiet river, the first was therefore more delicate for the fresh winner of Roland-Garros. In fact, he even made it a little complicated for himself: while he was leading 5-3 and serving for the set, “Carlitos” had a small slump when he was broken by a white before conceding the next two games. But under pressure, he reacted well to once again steal the opponent’s commitment and tighten the game in a tie-break where he still saw the Australian come back from 5 points to 1 at 5-4.

Once in front, however, it was a real demonstration. Alcaraz chained together flashes of brilliance, compiling no less than 42 winners for 15 small unforced errors in total. The two sets took exactly the same turn: the Murcian brutally broke away at 1-1 with a double break each time, before concluding. Against “Big Foe”, the task should be much tougher but the defending champion seems ready, as he confirmed in his post-match interview.

Medvedev was not amused

The feat was not so far away for Alexandre Müller. The Frenchman, ranked 102nd in the world, caused many problems for Daniil Medvedev, seeded 5 at this Wimbledon 2024, under the roof of the Centre Court on Wednesday. But the Russian ended up bringing him back to reason in four sets (6-7, 7-6, 6-4, 7-5) and 3h28 of play in the 2nd round of the London Major. Well jostled, the Russian will have to face Jan-Lennard Sruff or Zhizhen Zhang in his next match, two players who appeared in good form in Halle ten days ago.

Medvedev thus emerged from a day where everything seemed to be going wrong, as evidenced by the tie-break in the first set: furious to see it slip away from him, the Russian even went to sit on his chair at 6 points to 3 against him, believing he had lost the set. The crazy sequence made his two coaches Gilles Cervara and Gilles Simon laugh, less so the person concerned who got up to lose the next point and the set as he had anticipated. Then, he was broken at the start of the second act (6-7, 1-3). And if he made up his delay, he had to save two points of two sets to nothing on his serve at 5-4, then 6-5 against him.

So badly beaten, the Russian saw his audacity pay off: he went forward twice to get out of it. Still behind by a double mini-break at the start of the tie-break (3 points to 0), he did not panic again to win 7 of the next 8 points. From then on, Medvedev led the dance, even if after taking off at the start of the third set, he was caught up. In the “money time” of this third act and the fourth, he knew how to tighten up the game and toughen up the rallies to finish each time on the restart. Tenacious until the end, Müller gave way cruelly on a final double fault. But he will have nothing to be ashamed of, his level of play in the arm wrestling from the baseline as in the touch at the net was impressive.

Ruud definitely can’t do it

Casper Ruud has never made it past the second round at Wimbledon. And he won’t be again this year. The Norwegian, known for his allergy to grass and who had not played a single warm-up match on the surface before the English Major, fell to veteran Fabio Fognini, ranked 94th in the world, on Wednesday in four sets (6-4, 7-5, 6-7, 6-3) and 3 hours and 18 minutes of play on court number 2. The Italian will face his compatriot Lorenzo Sonego or Roberto Bautista Agut for a place in the round of 16.

And the bill could have been even higher for Ruud. Fognini led 6-4, 7-5, 5-2 double break in the third set before failing twice when serving for the match. After losing the tie-break 7 points to 1, the Italian managed to recover in the fourth act to make the difference again at 4-3 and win on his 4th match point, not without saving another opportunity to break back. He had not been this far at Wimbledon for three years.

2024-07-03 16:31:00
#Wimbledon #2nd #favorites #Alcaraz #advances #sets #Medvedev #shaken #Müller #Ruud #eliminated #Fognini