Wimbledon 2024: Carlos Alcaraz Overcomes Mark Lajal’s Challenge to Advance Into Second Round

London: Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz of Spain confronted a few now not easy moments as he became pushed by Estonian qualifier Heed Lajal on Monday nonetheless stumbled on a approach thru in straight sets to make definite his title Wimbledon defence began in best vogue at The Championships 2024. The 21-12 months-identical outdated withstood a free-hitting, aggressive performance from Lajal to picture a 7-6(3), 7-5, 6-2 victory on the grass-court major.

Fifth seed Daniil Medvedev and Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria and three-time Massive Slam winner Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland too received their first-round matches and evolved to the next stage.

Opening play on Centre Court as the defending champion, Alcaraz seemed fully glad for great intervals in an atmosphere in which he holds fond reminiscences. The Spaniard toppled Novak Djokovic in 5 sets in the championship match closing 12 months to salvage his first Wimbledon title and seemed in relaxed spirits when strolling onto the court for his first ATP head-to-head meeting with Lajal.

In a two-hour, 22-minute fight, Alcaraz identical outdated his feathered tumble shot to great impression, whereas he treated the packed crowd to several explosive groundstrokes to advise a second-round meeting with Mallorca finalist Sebastian Ofner or Australian Aleksandar Vukic.

The No. 3 in the ATP Rankings grew to develop into the youngest participant in historic past to salvage a valuable on all three surfaces when he triumphed at Roland Garros closing month. Alcaraz then received his opening grass-court match of the 12 months towards Francisco Cerundolo at Queen’s sooner than British No. 1 Jack Draper upset him in the second round.

The Spaniard place any grass-court doubts to mattress towards Lajal, though, hitting 43 winners to lengthen his best picture back to 7-0 towards qualifiers at majors.

Lajal is No. 269 in the ATP Rankings nonetheless produced an impressive show on his Massive Slam debut. The 21-12 months-identical outdated, who admitted he began screaming after hearing he drew Alcaraz in the first round, became good the fifth man from Estonia to play at Wimbledon.

Alcaraz would play Borna Coric or Frances Tiafoe in the third round if he advances to round two. Croatian Coric beat Brazilian qualifier Felipe Meligeni Alves 6-3, 7-6(2), 6-3, whereas Tiafoe earned an exhilarating 6-7(5), 2-6, 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 comeback salvage towards Matteo Arnaldi. It is the first time the American has rallied from two sets down in his profession.

Medvedev romps thru

Medvedev became thru to the second round in beneath two hours as he received on his accepted Court No.1, sweeping past Aleksandar Kovacevic 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.

The 20-time tour-diploma champion Medvedev is now 6-0 in first-round matches at Wimbledon, nonetheless it absolutely became his other best SW19 picture he became more wanting to focus on in his post-match interview.

The No. 5 in the ATP Rankings will next rob on Alexandre Muller, a 6-4, 7-6(2), 7-6(5) winner towards qualifier Hugo Gaston. He'll hope to deal with any now not easy moments as evenly as he did towards Kovacevic — Medvedev crucially converted the handiest rupture level of the second advise to deem management of the pair’s maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head clash.

Should Medvedev attain the third round, he would face Thirty second seed Zhang Zhizhen or Jan-Lennard Struff. Zhang defeated French qualifier Maxime Janvier 7-6(4), 6-3, 6-2 in his opening match, whereas Struff downed Fabian Marozsan 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-2, 6-3.

The tenth seed, Dimitrov overcame Dusan Lajovic 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 in a single hour and forty five minutes whereas Wawrinka, who had the very best end result of reaching the quarterfinals here, defeated Charles Broom of Great Britain 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 in a single hour 50 minutes.