The Centre Court faithful got their money’s worth on Wednesday at Wimbledon.
It started with a 10-8 in the third set thriller (Johanna Konta over Donna Vekic) and both of the men’s matches were played to completion–a veritable triumph compared to the second-set retirements that Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic got from their opponents on Tuesday.
World No. 1 and defending champion Andy Murray picked up a second consecutive straight-set victory, beating Dustin Brown 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 to reach the third round. Murray cruised in one hour and 36 minutes and finished with an incredible ratio of 31 winners to five unforced errors.
“It was a good match from my end,” the top-seeded Scot commented. “I served well until really the last few games. I returned well. I didn’t make many mistakes. I hit a lot of good passing shots. So I was really happy with it, obviously.”
“Most of the guys you play, you can try to find a way where you know you can hurt them,” Brown explained. “If you do it, the whole match is a different situation. But today I had the feeling it made no difference what I did. If I stayed back, if I attacked, if I came in, if I chipped, if I hit the ball and came in. He pretty had much a good answer for everything. That made it difficult.”
Donald Young did his best to make things difficult for Nadal, crushing forehands–sometimes recklessly so–and getting to the net whenever possible. It worked to the tune of 11 games won, but the underdog American did not have quite enough to steal a set. Nadal withstood a late charge by Young to prevail 6-4, 6-2, 7-5 after two hours and 11 minutes.
Young’s 11 games were three more than anyone managed against the second-ranked Spaniard throughout the entire French Open. Nadal’s most competitive–or least lopsided–contest in Paris was a 6-1, 6-4, 6-3 second-round beatdown of Robin Haase.
Thirsting for more tennis, the Centre Court crowd was sent into a frenzy when Young broke serve in the 10th game of the third set to stay alive and reach 5-5. But that served as nothing more than a wakeup call for Nadal, who stormed through the next two games and thus sealed the deal while avoiding a fourth set that would have required a closed roof due to impending darkness.
“It was a good match again,” the 15-time Grand Slam champion assessed. “Almost all the time (I was) more or less under control. It’s true that I had the inconvenience with losing the serve serving for the match. That’s the only moment. For the rest of the things, I think I played a solid match. In general terms, I am happy. I played well.”
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