Daniil Medvedev, 3rd in the world, concluded his Wimbledon second round match on Friday, interrupted the day before by the night and dismissed Frenchman Adrian Mannarino (35th) 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (7/5). “When he plays well, he plays at Top 5 level, but sometimes he misses easy shots. So I’m happy to have won in three sets,” commented the 27-year-old Russian.
At the time of Thursday night’s interruption, he was leading 6-3, 6-3, 4-4. He only had to play four games and a tie-break on Friday to win his ticket to the third round where he will find the American Marcos Giron (65th) or the Hungarian Marton Fucsovics (67th). “I really acted as if the match continued (Thursday): I took a shower but I didn’t wash my hair,” commented Medvedev to explain how he experienced the interruption. On the restart, Mannarino saved a break point at 5-5 and managed to hold on until the tie-break.
Medvedev offered himself two match points at 6/4, the first on his serve. A double fault allowed Mannarino to come back to 5/6, but the Frenchman committed an unforced error on the second and gave the victory to his opponent. The grass-court Major is the least successful for Medvedev, whose best result is an 8th final played there in 2021, before being banned from participating last year, like all Russian and Belarusian players, due to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Winner of the US Open 2021, he was a finalist in Australia (2021 and 2022) and played quarterfinals at Roland-Garros (2021).