Tennis: Tennis-Alcaraz and Raducanu ready to take centre stage

LONDON (Reuters) – Champion Carlos Alcaraz will be in pursuit of a 10th successive win at the All England Club when he faces American rival Frances Tiafoe in the third round, while Emma Raducanu will be hoping her Wimbledon adventure is not cut short on Friday.

If their last duel is anything to go by, Centre Court fans should be in for a treat as Tiafoe went toe-to-toe with the Spaniard for five sets at the 2022 U.S. Open semi-finals before Alcaraz emerged victorious and went on to win the title.

“Frances, a great player… he always seems like he’s enjoying his time on the court. (He) tries to put (on) a show every time he steps on the court,” said Alcaraz, who is locked at 1-1 in meetings with the American 29th seed.

“It’s going to be a really fun match to play, to watch. I’ll try to put my good weapons on the match and try to beat him.

“Once you step on the court, (you’re) not friends. You have to … focus on yourself, and try to beat him. That’s how tennis works.”

While three-time Grand Slam champion Alcaraz clearly has his eyes fixed on hoisting the gilded Challenge Cup for a second time, fellow 21-year-old and British hope Raducanu’s immediate goals are more modest.

The 2021 U.S. Open champion just wants to “stay an extra day” at the grasscourt major considering she needed a wildcard invite from organisers to even compete at Wimbledon as her ranking has plummeted to 135th after an injury plagued 2023.

She will take on Greek ninth seed Maria Sakkari in a re-match of the 2021 Flushing Meadows semi-final.

Despite winning that encounter during her remarkable run in New York, when Raducanu became the first qualifier to capture a major, the Briton pointed out that too much has happened since then to read anything into that result.

“Circumstances are different. Like, in a third round (here) compared to a semi-final. At the time the dynamics were also different. I was an unknown player (then),” she said.

“I’m expecting a really tough match. She’s top 10 in the world. It’s going to be a really difficult one. I’m the complete underdog and I can just enjoy playing in my home crowd, home slam, just keep having fun.”

Men’s top seed Jannik Sinner will find himself closing the Centre Court programme for a second successive match, this time against Serbia’s Miomir Kecmanovic.

He will want to avoid another late night blockbuster after being taken close to the 11pm Wimbledon curfew by 2021 runner-up and fellow Italian Matteo Berrettini in the previous round.

Another Italian, seventh seed Jasmine Paolini, will open Court One proceedings against 2019 U.S. Open champion Bianca Andreescu and they will be followed by Bulgarian 10th seed Grigor Dimitrov against French showman Gael Monfils.

American second seed Coco Gauff will be looking to take another step closer to living up to her billing as title favourite when she takes on British qualifier Sonay Kartal.

(Reporting by Pritha Sarkar, editing by Christian Radnedge)