Alex de Minaur and Daria Kasatkina, Australia’s biggest Wimbledon hopes, avoided joining the legion of seeds who have already been scattered at this year’s Wimbledon as they battled into the third round.
In perfect sunny conditions on Thursday (Friday AEST), De Minaur brushed off a woeful first set against French qualifier Arthur Cazaux before regrouping and eventually showing some signs of his best in a 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 6-0 victory.
Then after his fellow Sydneysider Aleksandar Vukic had been crushed by the full power of world No 1 Jannik Sinner, the other national No 1 Kasatkina came through her second-round arm wrestle with Romania’s
There will be at least three Australians in the last 32, with injury-hampered Jordan Thompson having made it into the third round on Wednesday – and Rinky Hijikata on the brink of defeat to Ben Shelton when his match was controversially suspended because of the dying light.
The encouraging news for world No 11 de Minaur is he will next face Denmark’s August Holmgren, a qualifier ranked 181 places below him who knocked out Czech 21st seed Tomas Machac and may feel drained after the second longest match of the championships lasting four hours 38 minutes.
Fifteen of the 32 men’s seeds had already fallen in the first two rounds, and 15 of the women’s – and there was momentary concern both De Minaur and Kasatkina, the newest recruit for Australian tennis, might join them.
“It just shows you, this sport, it’s not easy out there. Anything can happen on any given day,” said De Minaur.
And though his victory, featuring 31 unforced errors, suggested plenty of work to be done still, he was grateful to have avoided the same second-round calamity of the French Open when beaten by Alexander Bublik.
De Minaur had never been knocked out of a grand slam by anyone as lowly ranked as No 115 Cazaux, but alarm bells rang once the fluid server from Montpellier took advantage of De Minaur’s absent-minded start on a packed No 2 Court.
But urged on at courtside by his Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt, De Minaur stirred, nearly doubled his first-serve percentage of 33% to 63% and swept to level the set scores.
Cazaux’s spirit was broken after De Minaur’s late break in the second, and ‘Demon’ felt freed to play his best tennis of the tournament so far, feeding the dispirited Frenchman a 41-minute ‘bagel’ set.
Kasatkina, the 16th seed, has beaten 34-year-old Begu more times than she has defeated any other player, so it looked a perfect draw as she swept through the first set, only for the veteran to uncork some laser shotmaking in the second.
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But, though occasionally venting her frustration to her courtside team about an uneven performance, Kasatkina recovered her poise, earned an early break in the decider and then reeled off the final four games to book a much more challenging third-round encounter with 18th seed Liudmila Samsonova, who has already knocked out star teenage Australian Maya Joint.
“I prefer this fire and getting this anger than when I don’t feel the energy at all. So sometimes I was screaming to the box and stuff, but that’s important, it gives you energy,” Kasatkina said.
Sydneysider Vukic gave Carlos Alcaraz a few worries last year on No 1 Court but his latest big-match date on Centre proved a bloodless affair as he was taken apart by Sinner 6-1, 6-1, 6-3 in an hour and 40 minutes, with his most notable resistance emerging at the death when he saved five match points.
“I feel like I’m in a boxing ring and just have to go back out there,” said Vukic.
Earlier, Australia’s Olympic men’s doubles champions, 15th seeds John Peers and Matt Ebden, bowed out in the opening round, losing 6-3, 6-4 to Czech pair Petr Nouza and Patrik Rikl.
