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Fans will have to wait to watch Paula Badosa and Stefanos Tsitsipas team in mixed doubles after Badosa was forced to withdraw from the event at Wimbledon due to injury.

Tsitsipas and Badosa, who recently made public their relationship, were due to compete together for the first time at Wimbledon. Badosa retired from her second-round singles match against Marta Kostyuk when trailing 2-6, 0-1 on Friday due to a lower back injury, leading to their withdrawal. It is the same injury that forced the former World No. 2 to miss Roland Garros in May.

"No I won't be able [to]," Badosa said when asked if she could still play with Tsitsipas. "The injury is the same as I have been struggling the past weeks. It's the stress fracture. I tried my best to try to play here, but yesterday when I woke up I already, after my first-round match, I felt it again. It's a little bit worse. I will need a few days off and talk to my team and see what I do in the next days and the next weeks."

World No. 5 Tsitsipas will continue his singles quest on Friday when he resumes his match against Andy Murray. The Greek will walk onto Centre Court trailing by two sets to one after play was suspended on Thursday night due to the 11 p.m. curfew.

Third seed Daniil Medvedev made short work of his delayed passage through to the Wimbledon third round Friday, playing just five games to complete a 6-3, 6-3, 7-6(5) win over Frenchman Adrian Mannarino.

The 2021 US Open champion was locked at 4-4 in the third set with the lefty when darkness forced the postponement of the match Thursday night. In contrasting warm, sunny conditions Friday, Medvedev recovered from an early mini-break in the tie-break to book a date with the winner of Marcos Giron and Marton Fucsovics.

"Not easy to play two different days," Medvedev said in his post-match press conference. "Four-all, never easy. Straightaway you're nervous, you don't want to lose this set because the momentum of the match can change. Happy that I managed to close it out on the tie-break. I feel like I played pretty well from the start today. We had some unbelievable points."

Before today, Mannarino had won three of the pair’s four grass-court meetings, including last month at ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

Medvedev advanced to the second round at the All England Club after defeating wild card Arthur Fery 7-5, 6-4, 6-3 in the first round on Wednesday. Medvedev’s best Wimbledon result is reaching the round of 16 in 2021 (l. to Hurkacz).

The tennis world is remembering Barry Phillips-Moore, former player, coach and the earliest adopter of the infamous ‘spaghetti-string’ racquet, which imparted extreme spin and was ultimately banned from the sport. Phillips-Moore passed away in Adelaide on 29 June, aged 85.

A two-time semi-finalist at the Australian Championships, Phillips-Moore grew up alongside Rod Laver, but broke the mould of the typical grass-loving Australian serve/volleyers, preferring to battle from the baseline, especially on clay. He won the Auckland title in 1968.

After his playing career, Phillips-Moore coached Paul McNamee, Peter McNamara, Harold Solomon and Eddie Dibbs before turning his attention to leading a group of young talent that fell outside traditional development pathways on European adventures with the help of a trusty minivan.

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One of his most famous prodigies was fellow Australian and Adelaide native Mark Woodforde, who went on to claim four singles titles and 67 doubles titles, including 12 majors.

Fans quickly noticed new tennis power couple Paula Badosa and Stefanos Tsitsipas in the Wimbledon mixed doubles draw when it was released, but they are not the only tennis couple in the field.

Partners Katie Boulter of Great Britain and Alex de Minaur of Australia are also playing mixed doubles together for the first time.

“I’ve been bugging her for a while to play. We said we would give it a go at least one time. It’s going to be exciting,” De Minaur said after his first-round singles win Thursday. “It's going to be fun. I'm going to enjoy it. I've been prepping playing a lot of doubles this grass-court season for this mixed. She hasn't on the other hand. She might be a little bit rusty, but I'm sure it's going to be a lot of fun.”

Boulter, who is into the third round in singles, is thrilled to be giving it a go with De Minaur.

“I think it's something we've both wanted to do for quite some time. I think we're both going to really enjoy it and cherish it. It's not often that you get to have that experience together, especially at Wimbledon,” Boulter said. “We're going to go out there and have a swing. We've got nothing to lose, so I'm looking forward to it.”

Andy Murray will return to court on Friday needing one more set to reach the third round at Wimbledon for just the second time since 2017. The Scot was leading World No. 5 Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-7(3), 7-6(2), 6-4 on Thursday when play was suspended for the day on Centre Court at 10:38 p.m. The decision was made to stop the match given that a conclusion before the 11 p.m. curfew was very unlikely.

With a raucous crowd watching on, little could separate two-time champion Murray and Greek Tsitsipas as they went blow for blow in a blockbuster second-round clash under the Centre Court roof.

Tsitsipas struck his forehand with destructive power throughout the two hours and 53 minutes they spent on court, but Murray grew as the match went on. After losing the first set, the former World No. 1 showed great movement and struck his groundstrokes with more aggression in the second and third sets to end the day ahead.

There was one moment of worry for Murray in the final game of the third set, though. The Scot fell and clutched his groin while serving for the set, but returned to his feet and sealed the set on the following point. The former World No. 1 will need to examine any lingering consequences of the fall overnight.

Murray and Tsitsipas are locked at 1-1 in their ATP Head2Head series, with the Greek winning their previous major meeting at the US Open in 2021. The winner will play Laslo Djere in the third round after the Serbian defeated #NextGenATP American Ben Shelton 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(5) 6-3.

Denis Kudla stopped Kei Nishikori's six-match winning streak on the ATP Challenger Tour Thursday, when the American survived the former World No. 4 at the Cranbrook Tennis Classic in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

The World No. 180 Kudla defeated Nishikori 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 to reach the quarter-finals at the Challenger 75 event, which was the Japanese star's second tournament in 20 months. Nishikori began his comeback in June at the Caribbean Open in Puerto Rico, where he went on a dream title run with the loss of just one set.

Despite making 45 per cent of his first serves, Kudla turned the two-hour, 21-minute contest into a physical battle and played with depth from the baseline to hurt Nishikori, who let slip a break advantage at 2-1 in the decider. The 30-year-old Kudla will next meet Kazakh Mikhail Kukushkin in the last eight.

Nishikori will be in ATP Challenger Tour action again next week in Chicago, Illinois. The 12-time tour-level titlist will then play the ATP Tour events in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. The 33-year-old, who underwent arthroscopic left hip surgery last year, is No. 478 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings.

Novak Djokovic will play Stan Wawrinka in a third-round blockbuster on Friday at Wimbledon, where Carlos Alcaraz will also be in action.

Djokovic's matches have gone off as scheduled thus far despite rain wreaking havoc on most of the schedule for much of the first week. Wawrinka played his second-round match Thursday, defeating Tomas Martin Etcheverry in straight sets.

Alcaraz would have played his second-round match against Alexandre Muller Thursday under normal circumstances. But delays caused by rain earlier in the week pushed the Spaniard's section of the draw back one day.

All third-round matches on the bottom half of the draw are scheduled for Friday, including Djokovic-Wawrinka, Lorenzo Musetti-Hubert Hurkacz, Jannik Sinner-Quentin Halys and Andrey Rublev-David Goffin.

Besides Alcaraz, other stars in the top half of the draw set for second-round action include Holger Rune, Cameron Norrie, Alexander Zverev, Alex de Minaur and Matteo Berrettini. De Minaur and Berrettini will face each other on Court 18.

Ninth seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic continued their standout grass-court season Thursday when they kickstarted their Wimbledon title quest in winning fashion.

The Croatians downed Matwe Middelkoop and Marcelo Demoliner 7-6(5), 6-4 in the opening round, where they did not face a break point throughout the one-hour, 38-minute contest. Mektic and Pavic converted their eighth set point in the opener to gain an advantage on the Dutch-Brazilian team.

The 2021 Wimbledon champions Mektic and Pavic, who were finalists at SW19 last year, have won three titles this season, including at the grass-court ATP Tour events in Stuttgart and Eastbourne. They will next meet home favourites Liam Broady and Jonny O’Mara or Rafael Matos and Francisco Cabral.

In other men's doubles action, Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson defeated John Isner and Jack Sock 7-5, 6-4. The Australian Purcell teamed with countryman Matthew Ebden to win the Wimbledon title a year ago.

16th seeds Marcelo Melo and John Peers also advanced after they rallied past Robin Haase and Philipp Oswald 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-4. Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos, who are seeded 15th, survived Robert Farah and Juan Sebastian Cabal 6-7(6), 7-6(2), 7-6(9). The Spanish-Argentine pair fended off a match point on serve at 5-6 in the decider.

Third seed Daniil Medvedev was two games from victory against Adrian Mannarino on Thursday evening before darkness descended on the All England Lawn Tennis Club. Up two sets to love, Medvedev led 4-2 in the third set before the Frenchman staged a late charge to extend the match into a second day of play.

Medvedev will take a 6-3, 6-3, 4-4 lead into Friday, with Mannarino to serve when the match resumes. While the scoreline still favours Medvedev, the 27-year-old will be wary of his veteran opponent, who leads their Lexus ATP Head2Head 4-2 and won their most recent encounter last month on the grass of 's-Hertogenbosch.

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Medvedev has yet to lose a set this fortnight. He opened his campaign with a straight-sets win against home favourite Arthur Fery on Wednesday and will hope to keep his perfect run alive when he returns to the court for a third straight day.

Wimbledon is the only major at which Medvedev has not advanced to at least the quarter-finals. His best result on the London lawns was a fourth-round run in 2021.

A Lexus ATP Head2Head rivalry that has produced a host of classic encounters comes to Wimbledon for the first time on Friday, when Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka clash at the grass-court major.

The former World No. 3 Wawrinka is trying to complete a full set of Grand Slam victories against 23-time major champion Djokovic, having already defeated the Serbian at the Australian Open, Roland Garros and the US Open. Roger Federer is the only player to have completed that feat against the seven-time year-end World No. 1.

“I think it's an honour to play Novak here,” said Wawrinka after his second-round triumph against Tomas Martin Etcheverry on Thursday in London. “I was missing that in my career, to play him in Wimbledon. That's the last [major where] I never played him, and it's going to be a difficult challenge.”

Ahead of the 27th tour-level meeting between seven-time Wimbledon champion Djokovic and three-time major winner Wawrinka, ATPTour.com looks back on six of the duo’s most epic Grand Slam battles.

2013 Australian Open R16, Djokovic d Wawrinka 1-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-7(5), 12-10
Wawrinka’s 2013 Australian Open campaign ended in fourth-round defeat, but it was arguably the moment the Swiss announced himself on the Grand Slam stage. Playing to reach his maiden major quarter-final, he led the defending champion 6-1, 5-2 before Djokovic prevailed in a nailbiting deciding set for a five-hour, two-minute triumph on Rod Laver Arena.

Sixteen-year-old WTA star Mirra Andreeva continued her rapid rise on Thursday when she advanced to the third round at Wimbledon. As has become customary over the past few months, two-time champion Andy Murray came up in her press conference.

“I met Andy Murray here. But I'm too shy to talk to him,” Andreeva said. “When I see him, I try to leave the facility super quick just to not to talk to him because I'm super shy.”

Why was Andreeva asked about Murray? It dates back to an interview she gave to Tennis Channel during the Mutua Madrid Open. In speaking about competing in the same tournament as some of the world’s best players, she mentioned being around certain stars including Murray, whom she called “beautiful”.

The moment went viral on social media and Murray caught wind of it.

“Imagine how good she’s going to be when she gets her eyes fixed,” Murray tweeted.

There were contrasting fortunes for the two Top 10 American men's singles seeds on Thursday at Wimbledon. Frances Tiafoe, seeded 10th, earned his second straight-sets win in as many days with a 7-6(11), 6-4, 6-2 result against Dominic Stricker. Moments before, Mikael Ymer put the finishing touches on a comeback to upset ninth seed Taylor Fritz 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.

Tiafoe, who beat Wu Yibing on Wednesday to begin his campaign, continued his strong form to advance to the third round for the fifth straight time at a major. After saving four set points in a marathon opening tie-break, the American dominated the final two sets.

"That first [set] was everything," Tiafoe said post-match, speaking to James Blake on ESPN. "I wasn't playing my best in the first, but was serving well. I had a bunch of aces today, so I think that was the difference. And then experience, I think that was the biggest thing probably, especially in that first set. I loosened up quite a lot after that."

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The 25-year-old, a US Open semi-finalist last season, saved all four break points he faced and fired 23 aces in the victory. He will next meet 21st seed Grigor Dimitrov, a 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 winner against Ilya Ivashka.

Liam Broady earned the biggest win of his career Thursday at Wimbledon, where he stunned fourth seed Casper Ruud in five sets to reach the second round for the second consecutive year.

ATPTour.com looks at five things to know about the British lefty.

Sister Naomi Was A Pro Player
One of the people in Broady’s player box on Centre Court was Naomi Broady, Liam’s older sister and the former World No. 56 on the Hologic WTA Tour.. They are the middle pair of four siblings (also Calum and Emma).

Their father introduced them to the sport when they were seven and four, respectively. They have been able to support each other and enjoyed when they were able to be at the same event together, including in Miami two years ago.

“You have an inside knowledge about what’s going on,” Liam said at the time. “I think it’s a very particular profession to be in, and not many people really understand the sort of things that we go through.

Andrey Rublev dug deep to bring up a major milestone Thursday at Wimbledon, where the seventh seed defeated Aslan Karatsev 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 for his 50th Grand Slam match win.

Rublev reacted well after dropping the first set to seal a two-hour, 52-minute second-round victory against the World No. 50 Karatsev on Court 2. The 25-year-old claimed the only break of serve in each of the second and third sets before overcoming a late wobble on serve to level the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head series at 1-1.

5O Grand Slam wins ✅@AndreyRublev97 from a set down defeats Karatsev 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-4, 7-5.@Wimbledon | #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/D1CMK9wnaY

Rublev was broken by Karatsev when serving for the match at 5-4 in the fourth set, but made no mistake the second time around at 6-5 to advance to the third round at Wimbledon for the second time. His opponent as he bids to equal his personal-best showing at the grass-court major, a fourth-round run from 2021, will be wild card David Goffin or qualifier Marcelo Tomas Barrios Vera.

Frenchman Alexandre Muller will play the biggest match of his life Thursday when he takes on World No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz at Wimbledon.

The 26-year-old Frenchman, who beat countryman Arthur Rinderknech Wednesday in his first main-draw grass-court match at the junior or pro level, knows that he will start as the longest of longshots against the recent Queen's champion. But he's going to give it everything he's got.

Here are five things to know about Muller as he prepares for his big match with the Spaniard.

He's as green as the Wimbledon grass
Muller's prior experience playing on grass? None at the junior level. In the pros he played Halle and Wimbledon qualifying in 2021 and Wimbledon qualifying last year. That's it!

He arrived at Wimbledon Thursday but he practised very little due to a leg injury and rain. "I was still playing on clay courts one week ago, so I didn't expect anything amazing here," Muller said. "It was a beautiful day for me. It's just crazy that I won this match with my preparation. With the injury and the rain there was not so much practice.

Possessing a swinging lefty serve, a destructive forehand and good touch, it is no surprise #NextGenATP Swiss Dominic Stricker has excelled on the London grass this season. The 20-year-old battled through three rounds of qualifying at Roehampton before he clawed past Alexei Popyrin in five-sets to earn his maiden major win at Wimbledon.

Making his debut at The Championships, Stricker is soaking up the feel-good factor that swirls around SW19 at this time of year.

“It's amazing to be here,” Stricker told ATPTour.com. “I was playing qualifying in Roehampton and then coming here on the site that I have always seen on TV is amazing. I have seen so many good matches here. It is just an honour to play here on these courts. I'm just super happy to be here and to have one more match.

“I think my game suits grass very well. I played good all of the years that I played on grass. And then now this year with qualifying and then also winning one match, that is already great. But there is more to come.”

Stricker will need to find more if he is to continue his Wimbledon run, with 10th seed Frances Tiafoe his next opponent on Thursday.

Despite a 20-month absence from competition, Kei Nishikori has not missed a beat in his first six matches on the ATP Challenger Tour. Part of the reason why is that the Japanese star stayed connected to the sport.

“I was watching a lot of tennis actually. I thought that was a good idea to be mentally ready to play again,” Nishikori told ATPTour.com. “Also just to remind me how the top players are playing. And I can imagine playing tennis in the head.

“Twenty months was not a short time. I was just trying to be mentally fresh, not stressing too much every day.”

The 33-year-old, who this week is competing in the Cranbrook Tennis Classic in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, first returned to action last month at the Palmas del Mar Challenger in Puerto Rico, where he dropped just one set en route to the title.

Nishikori quickly found a high level to be crowned champion in Palmas del Mar, where he was playing his first tournament since the 2021 BNP Paribas Open. Throughout the Challenger 75 event, the former World No. 4 produced vintage down-the-line winners and showed deft feel from all corners of the court. By the end of the week, Nishikori had his hands around the trophy.

When Thursday's Wimbledon order of play was released, one notable name was missing: World No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz. That is because of the rain that has wreaked havoc at SW19 early in the fortnight.

Alcaraz won his first-round match Tuesday against Frenchman Jeremy Chardy and will play another Frenchman, Alexandre Muller in the second round. If there had not been rain, the 20-year-old would have been scheduled for Thursday after one day off.

However, the rain has delayed other players in his section. None of Alcaraz's potential third-round opponents have completed their first-round match yet. 

Nicolas Jarry, the 25th seed, trails Marco Cecchinato 4-6, 4-1. Jason Kubler leads Ugo Humbert 6-4, 4-6, 6-2. Both matches are scheduled second on Thursday.

It is not the only section rain has delayed. There are three first-round matches that have not begun yet: Alexander Zverev against Gijs Brouwer, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina against Arthur Fils and Botic van de Zandschulp against Zhang Zhizhen.

After losing a decisive tie-break to Stefanos Tsitsipas on Wednesday in the Wimbledon opening round, Dominic Thiem maintained a positive outlook. Following the match, a 3-6, 7-6(1), 6-2, 6-7(5), 7-6(10-8) win for the Greek, Thiem's tournament is over — but he feels his comeback to the top of the ATP Tour is just beginning.

"Obviously it was a great encounter, and to me, I'm leaving with [my] head up," the 29-year-old said in his post-match press conference. "It kind of showed me that I'm still there. The quality was very, very good. The fighting spirit was really, really good.

"This match showed me a lot of good things that I'm still here, still able to compete with the big boys of the game. Obviously it's tough, but, well, a tie-break in the fifth is like a penalty shootout. All credit to him as well, how he played in the breaker, and how he saved that break point in the fifth was just unbelievable."

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While Thiem and Tsitsipas also played a final-set tie-break in Madrid earlier this year — again won by Tsitsipas — the Austrian felt more positive about their most recent Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting.

"I needed that, because today also somehow felt different than in Madrid, for example, because the quality was really there today," said the Austrian, who is now knotted with Tsitipas 5-5 in their series. "How I was feeling on the court in general was just how it should be, and that what makes me happy also looking to the next weeks."

At age 36, Novak Djokovic continues to prove that age is just a number.

The Serbian extended his winning streak at Grand Slam events to 23 on Wednesday, when he produced a clean performance to defeat Australian Jordan Thompson in the second round of Wimbledon.

The victory earned Djokovic his 350th match win at the majors, becoming just the third player to reach that milestone, joining Roger Federer (369) and Serena Williams (365). The Belgrade-native is showing no signs of slowing down.

“You're only as young or as old as you feel. I feel young in my own body, in my own head, in my heart,” Djokovic said in his post-match press conference. “My children remind me of that, the time that I spend with them. The innocence, incredible curiosity, pure love and energy that I get to experience with them is something that really strengthens that inner child in you.

“Also the fact that I'm still playing the sport that I fell in love with when I was very young. I think that is something that is very refreshing. I have to say that I'm really fortunate and blessed to have a healthy body. Still at this stage, after 20 years of professional tennis, I'm able to compete at the highest level.”