Wimbledon, England – Reigning champion Novak Djokovic and six-time winner Roger Federer cruised into the third round, while three-time runner-up Andy Roddick notched an opening-round victory Wednesday at Wimbledon.
The top-seeded Djokovic handled promising 20-year-old American Ryan Harrison 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 in 1 hour, 56 minutes in the Day-3 nightcap under the roof on Centre Court. The powerful Djokovic was not broken, while he broke Harrison on three occasions.
Djokovic is now 29-1 over his last five majors and 41-2 over his last seven Grand Slams.
The 25-year-old Djokovic reached his first-ever Wimbledon final and captured his first-ever title here with a victory over Rafael Nadal a year ago. Djokovic and Nadal have met in the last four Grand Slam finals, with the Serb winning three of them. Nadal, however, beat Djokovic in the French Open finale three weeks ago.
Djokovic will meet the Radek Stepanek-Benjamin Becker winner on Friday.
Playing in front of Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, the third-seeded Federer gained a 6-1, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Italian Fabio Fognini on Centre Court. The super Swiss fired 13 aces and needed 1 hour, 14 minutes to swiftly advance to the next round, where the 16-time major champ will meet 29th-seeded Frenchman Julien Benneteau on the hallowed lawns at the All England Lawn Tennis Club.
The Prince of Wales, who applauded Federer after his Day-3 victory, had not attended Wimbledon since 1970.
Federer also kept up his incredible second-round streak, having never lost in that round at a Grand Slam. The last time he failed to reach the third round at a major was when he fell in the opening round at the 2003 French Open.
The 30-year-old Federer is in a bid to tie William Renshaw and Pete Sampras' record of seven Wimbledon titles, but his last major championship came in 2010 at the Australian Open.
The 30th-seeded Roddick needed two days to beat Scotland's Jamie Baker, 7-6 (7-1), 6-4, 7-5, in a match that was suspended because of rain on Tuesday. The American advanced in three hours with the help of 14 aces and was not broken in the predictable match.
The former world No. 1 Roddick is a former U.S. Open champ who has lost to Federer in a trio of Wimbledon finales.
Up next for Roddick will be speedy German Bjorn Phau on Thursday.
Eighth-seeded Serb Janko Tipsarevic posted a come-from-behind second-round win against American Ryan Sweeting, 5-7, 7-5, 6-4, 6-2.
Meanwhile, 12th-seeded Spaniard Nicolas Almagro beat France's Guillaume Rufin 6-2, 5-7, 6-2, 6-4; 15th-seeded Argentine Juan Monaco bested Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-0); 18th-seeded Frenchman Richard Gasquet doused Belgian Ruben Bemelmans 6-3, 6-4, 6-4; 26th-seeded Russian Mikhail Youzhny drilled Spaniard Inigo Cervantes 6-1, 6-3, 6-4; the aforementioned Benneteau topped American journeyman Michael Russell, 7-6 (7-4), 2-6, 6-4, 7-5; and 31st-seeded Florian Mayer topped fellow German Philipp Petzschner 3-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 in second-round play. Petzschner was a runner-up in the Netherlands last week.
Seventh-seeded Spaniard David Ferrer finished off a rain-suspended opening- round match by besting German Dustin Brown 7-6 (7-5), 6-4, 6-4.
In other first-round action involving seeds, No. 21 Canadian Milos Raonic smacked 20 aces in downing Colombian Santiago Giraldo 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 and Austrian lefthander Jurgen Melzer ousted No. 25 Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka 3-6, 7-6 (7-2), 2-6, 6-4, 8-6. The rising Raonic needed only 80 seconds to advance on Wednesday after his match was suspended on Tuesday night.
Other second-round wins came for Serb Viktor Troicki and Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin, while additional opening-round wins came for Phau, 6-foot-10 Croat Ivo Karlovic, and Poles Lukasz Kubot and Jerzy Janowicz. Karlovic will meet fourth-seeded three-time Grand Slam runner-up Andy Murray of Great Britain in round two on Thursday.
Rain delayed play for several hours on the outside courts on Wednesday and four second-round matches were suspended or postponed.
The second-seeded two-time Wimbledon champ Nadal will take to the courts Thursday for his second-rounder against Czech Lukas Rosol.
The former No. 1 star owns 11 Grand Slam titles, including seven French Opens and the pair of Wimbledon championships. The super Spaniard has appeared in the last five major finals, going 2-3, including another big win in Paris a few weeks ago. He lost to Djokovic in last year's Wimbledon finale.
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