PAMedia/DPA
London
Jannik Sinner continued to keep his head while all around are losing theirs after cruising into the Wimbledon third round on Thursday.
While Carlos Alcaraz needed five sets to see off 38-year-old Fabio Fognini and Novak Djokovic required ‘miracle pills’ to overcome Alexandre Muller - not to mention the shock exits of seeds three and four Alexander Zverev and Jack Draper - Sinner has barely broken sweat.
The world number one took just an hour and 40 minutes to defeat Australian Aleksandar Vukic 6-1, 6-1, 6-3 and set up a meeting with Spain’s Pedro Martinez on Saturday.
The only minor hiccup was needing six match points to finish off the world number 93.
Gallingly for his remaining rivals, Italian Sinner has dropped only 12 games in two matches, spending a miserly hours three and 28 minutes on court so far.
Alex de Minaur battled back from being a set down to make sure he did not join the seeds’ scrapheap at this shock-filled Championships.
The Australian 11th seed was poor in the opening set against French qualifier Arthur Cazaux but reset impressively to win 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 6-0.
Grigor Dimitrov is also safely through, the 19th seed from Bulgaria taking out volatile Frenchman Corentin Moutet in four.
But American 13th seed Tommy Paul, last year’s Queen’s Club winner, joined the exodus of seeds with a 1-6, 7-5, 6-4, 7-5 defeat by Austrian Sebastian Ofner.
Czech 21st seed Thomas Machac was also knocked out after a five-set marathon against August Holmgren, the world number 192 from Denmark. who is now through to a third-round meeting with De Minaur. A total of 19 of the 32 men’s seeds have been knocked out before the third round.
