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).
"Today I think I played even better than yesterday, so far [I am] happy," Medvedev said. "The further you go, the tougher the opponents, the tougher the matches. This match was much better than the first one. That's how you want to be in a Grand Slam."