Draper lets his frustration out during his game against Ymer
Watch as Jack Draper lets his frustration out during his game against Elias Ymer during their match on Centre Court at Wimbledon.
Watch as Jack Draper lets his frustration out during his game against Elias Ymer during their match on Centre Court at Wimbledon.
As dusk set across The All England Club on Monday night in London, Aleksandar Vukic leaned back on his chair and let out a sigh of relief. The Australian had just earned a gruelling five-set victory against Sebastian Ofner, saving a match point en route to reaching the second round at Wimbledon after three hours and 49 minutes.
His reward? A meeting with defending champion Carlos Alcaraz.
A smile broke across the Australian’s face when he was told his second-round opponent’s name. Gazing into the distance, Vukic recalled his first meeting with the 21-year-old Alcaraz.
“I remember first seeing him when I played him at French Open qualifying in 2020,” Vukic told ATP Tour.com. “I think he was 17 or something. You could tell he was going to be special. There was a lot of hype around him. I actually won that match. I saved a match point there and beat him in the first round. But there was so much hype and you could just tell he had that raw power to him. And age 17, he was destroying the ball. It was obvious something was going to happen. I think two years after that he was World No. 1. It is just a crazy rise.”
[ATP APP]Since Alcaraz made his breakthrough on Tour in 2021, he has gained a reputation of being humble and warm. The defending Wimbledon champion often has a smile on his face when walking around site and looks excited when on court.
Vukic praised Alcaraz’s demeanour and believes tennis is in a good place with the Spaniard at the top.
“I practised with Carlos in Beijing last year and he’s a super nice guy,” Vukic said. “The way he handles everything, he’s becoming an icon of the sport. The way he handles himself with the crowd, with other players, with everyone, is impressive. At such a young age, he embraces that side of the sport, gaining a lot of attention but he embraces that. I have a lot of respect for him.”
When Vukic walks onto No. 1 Court to face Alcaraz on Wednesday, it won’t be the first time he has played a Top 5 star this year. In Indian Wells in March, the 28-year-old pushed Novak Djokovic to a third set before eventually falling short.
The No. 69 player in the PIF ATP Rankings is hoping to use the experience he gained against the Serbian in his match with Alcaraz, which will once again be in front of a capacity crowd.
“That was that was such a great experience to play Novak on the big court there in Indian Wells. It will be a similar experience with Carlos and I think one of the biggest challenges is to play tennis and not to play the guy across. I think I did a good job of that at Indian Wells,” Vukic said. “I think the more I’m able to play these guys, the less it becomes overwhelming and the more you get accustomed to it.”
Vukic played college tennis at the University of Illinois and broke the Top 100 for the first time in May 2023. The Australian reached his first ATP Tour final in Atlanta last year and arrives at Wimbledon off the back of a semi-final showing at the ATP 250 grass-court event in Eastbourne.
Confidence is high, but facing Alcaraz is a daunting task. The former Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF champion became the youngest player to win a major on all three surfaces when he triumphed at Roland Garros last month, while he has earned victory in 14 of his past 15 grass-court matches.
“He’s got a lot of weapons, but I have got to play my game,” Vukic said. “My game does revolve a lot around my serve, my forehand and being very steady on the backhand. I really have to maximise that and go for my opportunities and be brave against him. I really need to have that mindset of going out there and going after him. I’m going to have to play great.”
Away from the court, Vukic is an avid chess player and enjoys watching football. The Australian is staying in a house with his team in west London and revealed his off-court interests help him switch off after long days on site.
“I am playing chess whenever I can. There are actually a few tennis players I’ve played, a few of the French guys, so it’s nice,” Vukic said. “I was playing in ‘s-Hertogenbosch as they had a board, and playing a bit now in London. It’s not relaxing, but it tests your brain in other ways, so I really do enjoy it. It kind of helps the brain stay active, and then I have been watching the Euros. I’m in a fantasy league with Popyrin and Demon is in there as well, so that makes you really into it. Initially I just picked a lot of the Arsenal players, so Saka, Havertz, Saliba. Fortunately, they’ve all been doing well.
“It’s so nice because we have a house here, so we just chuck the games on. It takes our mind off tennis as well, because sometimes we’ll go back and we’ll watch tennis, but we’re at the court for 12 hours a day, so we need to watch some football or something else.”
Football Fever! ATP Tour Meets The Euros
When Vukic wakes up on Wednesday morning, attention will be fully on facing Alcaraz. But what can fans expect to see from the Australian if they are watching him in action for the first time?
“I try to pride myself on how I compete,” said Vukic, who is aiming to reach the third round at a major for the first time. “If I can walk off that court and say that I have given it my best and made it tough for him I will be pleased. I want him to think ‘He’s tough to play, he doesn’t go away’. That’s what I want to achieve because I think that is something that I can do and that is something that makes you such a big competitor and very annoying to play for a lot of players.”
[NEWSLETTER FORM]Marketa Vondrousova’s Wimbledon title defence came to an early end as she fell to a surprising first-round defeat by Spain’s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro.
Play has resumed on all courts at Wimbledon after Tuesday’s schedule was interrupted by rain in London.
Day 2 action at the grass-court major began at 11 a.m. local time (BST), before the rain forced 10 men’s singles matches being held on uncovered courts to be suspended at approximately 12:15 p.m. The players returned to the SW19 grass shortly before 1:30 p.m, however, with seventh seed Hubert Hurkacz aiming to escape some early trouble on No. 3 Court. The Pole resumed his clash with Radu Albot trailing 5-7, 1-1.
[ATP APP]Despite the weather, the action began at 1:30 p.m. on Centre Court and 1 p.m. on No. 1 Court, with both stadiums fitted with a retractable roof.
Seven-time Wimbledon champion and No. 2 in the PIF ATP Rankings Novak Djokovic will take on Vit Kopriva in the second match on Centre Court, before home favourite Jack Draper meets Elias Ymer. On No. 1 Court, fourth seed Alexander Zverev vs. Roberto Carballes Baena is the second match on.
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Watch as Paul Jubb wins the point after an exciting rally against Thiago Seyboth Wild during their first round match at Wimbledon.
Andy Murray has withdrawn from singles at The Championships. The Scot remains in the doubles draw with brother Jamie Murray.
After exiting the cinch Championships at Queen’s Club, Murray underwent an operation on his back, which he said “wasn’t insignificant”. The former No. 1 player in the PIF ATP Rankings has been working hard to try to compete in both singles and doubles at Wimbledon, but will now turn his attention to doubles.
[ATP APP]Murray owns a 61-13 singles record at SW19. He has lifted the trophy twice, in 2013 becoming the first British men’s singles champion at the tournament since Fred Perry in 1936.
This will be Murray’s third appearance in the Wimbledon doubles draw. In 2005 he partnered David Sherwood and in 2019 he competed alongside Pierre-Hugues Herbert.
Murray will be replaced in the singles draw by David Goffin, who will take on Tomas Machac in the first round.
[NEWSLETTER FORM]BBC Sport’s Clare Balding visits Great Britain’s Jack Draper to discuss his run at Queen’s, friendship with Andy Murray and meet his dog, Ozzy.
Emma Raducanu makes a winning return to Wimbledon, but fellow Britons Heather Watson, Charles Broom, Liam Broady and Arthur Fery lose on day one.
Carlos Alcaraz opens his title defence at Wimbledon with a hard-fought victory over qualifier Mark Lajal, while Jannik Sinner also reaches the second round.
Tomas Machac’s first-round clash against Andy Murray is one of the most-anticipated matches of The Championships. The encounter has plenty to live up to after their match-of-the-year candidate from the Miami third round in March.
The pair battled for a gruelling three hours and 28 minutes, making the occasion the third-longest best-of-three Miami men’s singles match on record. It was not just a long clash, but a dramatic one.
After rallying from 2-5 down in the final set, Murray rolled his ankle and was in agony. He returned to the court and managed to lead in the tie-break before losing despite suffering a full rupture of his ATFL and a near full thickness rupture of his CFL. Machac said it was “for sure the toughest match of my career”.
Now they will meet again on one of the biggest stages of the sport: Centre Court at SW19.
“It’s a first round at a Grand Slam. But it’s a special kind of occasion that we will play on Centre Court with the local guy maybe at the end of the career, playing good tennis,” Machac told ATPTour.com. “So this occasion is something special, I would say. But normally it’s a first round for me. It’s different, but I’m thinking like it’s a normal match on the big stage.”
As Machac said, the winner will only advance to the second round, not lift the trophy. But the eyes of a nation will be glued to every shot. Murray has made clear this will be his final appearance at The Championships and he just underwent surgery for a back cyst after the cinch Championships.
Machac will hope to take what he learned from their marathon encounter in Miami and apply it to the Wimbledon grass.
“It took quite a lot of time there. I was shaking because it was something incredible for me,” Machac said. “But after that, I was feeling much better on the court and everything was going welI. I remember that moment and it helps me lots to think about it.”
The Czech was shaking not just because Murray was across the net, but because there were big stakes. It was an opportunity to reach the fourth round at an ATP Masters 1000 event for the first time. He defeated Murray and then Matteo Arnaldi to make the quarter-finals.
One year ago, Machac needed to battle through qualifying to reach the Wimbledon main draw. He was No. 108 in the PIF ATP Rankings at the time and faced Cameron Norrie on No. 1 Court. He fell to the home favourite.
“I think last year, I was a little bit nervous from the beginning of the match,” Machac said. “When you are standing on this kind of stage against the local guy, it’s not easy from the beginning for you that you need to handle this situation. But I think I’m ready for that this year.”
[ATP APP]Now the Czech is World No. 39 and a month ago he reached a career-high World No. 33.
“It’s much better. It’s much better for me, especially when I played against Sinner in the quarter-finals of a 1000 [in Miami],” Machac said. “It’s much better 1719872551 that I have [played] these kind of matches. It helps.
“[I am] more experienced, of course. Then I think my game improved a lot. I’m trying to play with the best parts of my game, I don’t need to change something. I’m resisting to the [top players] quite good. So it helped me to improve in every way.”
Machac earned the biggest win of his career in Geneva, where he stunned Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals.
“Of course, with Novak, it sticks out, of course. These kind of matches, if you win it’s something that you will keep in your head for a long time, and it’s helped you to become better,” Machac said. “The match point I was hoping that he will miss actually. I was on the return against him, so I was just waiting for his mistake to finish the game actually.
“[I was thinking] like, ‘Wow, I did it. I beat the best one’. And after that, I was trying to be as quick as possible at the net to show him the respect that I will not lay down or something and he will wait in the net. So I was trying to show him the respect that I was happy to share the court with him and enjoy the game against him.”
All the experience has prepared Machac to meet the moment on Centre Court against Murray. All eyes will be on the Scot, but Machac will be ready to put up a fight.
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