Rafael Nadal beats Donald Young to reach Wimbledon third round
Marin Cilic and Kei Nishikori through but Lucas Pouille crashes out
Wednesday 5 July 2017 21:26, UK
Rafael Nadal saw off a spirited Donald Young to book a place in the last-32 at Wimbledon for the first time since 2014.
The Spaniard, a finalist in each of the first two Grand Slam events of the year, was too strong for the American winning 6-4 6-2 7-5 in the final match of the day on Centre Court.
He has not gone beyond the fourth round at the All England Club since losing to Novak Djokovic in the final in 2011 but he is in fantastic form. This was underlined by his 10th French Open title last month taking him to 15 Grand Slam titles.
Nadal eased through the first two sets but was made to work hard in the third by Young who broke the Spaniard when he was serving at 5-4 in the third set.
But Nadal broke straight back and closed out to love to seal a first meeting with rising Russian star Karen Khachanov, 21, after the 30th seed beat Brazil's Thiago Monteiro in four sets.
Khachanov was beaten by Andy Murray at the French Open and has risen to a career-high No 34 in the world rankings after a run to the semi-finals in Halle last week where he was beaten by Roger Federer.
Pouille became the second-highest seed to crash out when he was beaten in four sets by Jerzy Janowicz, following fifth seed and world No 3 Stan Wawrinka, who was beaten on the opening day.
Janowicz was a surprise Wimbledon semi-finalist in 2013 and moved into the last 32 at the expense of the French 14th seed, who reached the last eight last year. Next up for Janowicz is another Frenchman after Benoit Paire beat Pierre Hugues Herbert.
In the day's other second round matches, two-time semi-finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga moved into the third round with another straight-sets triumph.
The Frenchman saw off Britain's Cameron Norrie in the first round, losing just seven games and he lost just eight in beating Simone Bolelli 6-1 7-5 6-2.
Next up for Tsonga, who reached the last four in 2011 and 2012, is 24th seed Sam Querrey who beat Nikoloz Basilashvili in four sets to reach the third round.
Also in Tsonga's quarter, world No 124 Ruben Bemelmans ended the hopes of Daniil Medvedev, who had beaten Wawrinka in the biggest shock of the tournament.
Medvedev was beaten in five sets by the Belgian and at one stage had asked for the umpire to be removed having been on the receiving end of a number of overrule decisions. Bemelmans will play Kevin Anderson after the South African beat Andreas Seppi.
World No 6 and seventh seed Marin Cilic is safely through having recovered from an early break to beat Florian Mayer 7-6 6-4 7-5 to advance to a meeting with Steve Johnson who beat Moldova's Radu Albot in four sets.
Cilic's game would seem ideally suited to grass but his best performance at the All England Club has been the quarter-final in each of the last three years and the 2014 US Open champion has made routine progress through the first two rounds.
16th seed Gilles Muller edged a five-set big-serving marathon with Lukas Rosol, winning the deciding set 9-7 to advance to a showdown with Britain's No 4 Aljaz Bedene who beat Damir Dzunhur to reach the third round in SW19 for the first time.
Kei Nishikori reached the third round with a four-set victory over Sergiy Stakhovsky.
The Japanese, who is seeded ninth, will meet 18th seed Roberto Bautista Agut who also needed four sets before seeing off Germany's Peter Gojowczyk.
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