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Wawrinka rolls back years to set up Djokovic clash – ARN News Centre
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ADRIAN DENNIS/ AFP
Stan Wawrinka rolled back the years by knocking out Argentine Tomas Etcheverry to reach the third round at Wimbledon.
His career may be in its twilight but the 38-year-old Swiss proved a notch above a man 15 years his junior to claim a 6-3 4-6 6-4 6-2 victory on a sunny Court Three.
It was the first time Wawrinka has reached the third round of a Grand Slam for three years and his reward is a box-office duel with defending champion Novak Djokovic, the man he famously made cry after beating him in the 2015 French Open final.
The 88th-ranked Wawrinka, who has extended his career despite issues with his knees, had lost in the first or second round of his last six Grand Slam tournaments.
Elsewhere, Andrey Rublev overcame an opening set blip to beat Aslan Karatsev 6-7(4) 6-3 6-4 7-5 in an all-Russian clash on Thursday to claim his 50th Grand Slam match victory and move into the third round.
Karatsev had beaten Rublev in their only previous meeting en route to his first Tour-level title but the seventh seed exacted revenge on the back of an effective service game and decisive net play.
The pair looked evenly matched for much of the near-three-hour contest as Karatsev entertained the crowd with his powerful groundstrokes, but he struggled to break Rublev and that proved to be the difference.
Rublev, who did not play at Wimbledon last year due to the ban on Russian and Belarusian players, will next face the winner of the match between wildcard David Goffin and qualifier Tomas Barrios Vera.
Germany’s Alexander Zverev fired 20 aces past Dutch qualifier Gijs Brouwer to move into the Wimbledon second round with a hard-earned 6-4 7-6(4) 7-6(5) win.
The 19th seed did not have an easy tournament start against the world number 153, whose own first serve percentage matched that of Zverev, and with the German getting just two break opportunities in total in the first two sets.
He next plays another lower-ranked player in Japan’s world number 116 Yosuke Watanuki with little time to rest as the schedule has been reworked following all the rain delays.
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