LONDON – Stefanos Tsitsipas told reporters before Wednesday’s match that he arrived at Wimbledon free of anxiety or stress after a run of form that had given him reasons for confidence. Ninety-eight minutes later, having lost 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 on Centre Court, Tsitsipas was left to articulate the gap between the mindset he had described and the tennis he had produced. That gap, now 12 matches and counting, is one of the most settled facts in the contemporary men’s game.
Novak Djokovic reached the third round at Wimbledon for the 20th time in his career on Wednesday, extending his record over Tsitsipas in straight-set fashion and offering a version of his own tennis that he described afterward as “vintage.” The word was his. “It brings back the best days,” he added. Whether it sustains itself through a fortnight the 39-year-old identified as his reason for returning is the question Wednesday opened without answering. After losing here in the semi-finals last year, Djokovic said publicly he would come back one more time. He is back.
The match against Tsitsipas never found a competitive edge. Djokovic broke in the fifth game of the first set and the template was established: precise first-serve placement, return depth that pushed Tsitsipas wide on his backhand, and a defensive athleticism that made the angles Tsitsipas needed to close points simply unavailable. The Greek struck the ball cleanly in stretches but could not sustain pressure against a return game that has punished him in this specific matchup more than any other opponent on tour. By the third set the only meaningful statistic was the clock. Djokovic closed it in 98 minutes and will face No. 25 seed Arthur Rinderknech in the third round.
On the same order of play, Jannik Sinner’s route through to the third round was considerably less frictionless. The defending champion defeated Nuno Borges 7-6(4), 7-6(2), 6-4, but the scoreline obscures a match that ran longer than two and a half hours and required 22 aces to resolve. There were no break points in the first two sets. Sinner went a break down in the second, saved two set points to force the tiebreak, and won it 7-2 after Borges led 2-0 at the start. “Second set was very, very tough,” Sinner said afterward. The third set, a break in the sixth game consolidated without much alarm, was the tennis Sinner had expected to play from the start.
The draw Sinner is navigating has been shaped by Carlos Alcaraz’s withdrawal before the tournament began, the Spaniard having missed the entire grass season with a wrist injury. Alcaraz won Wimbledon in 2023 and has been the one opponent capable of pushing Sinner on his worst Grand Slam day. His absence cleared the lower half of the draw in ways that become more significant the further the tournament progresses. Sinner next plays Jenson Brooksby, where tiebreaks may again define the path rather than breaks.
The draw has placed Djokovic and Sinner in opposite halves, which means they can only meet in the final. Last year, Sinner beat Djokovic in the semi-finals before defeating Alcaraz in the title match. Sinner began the 2026 season targeting a career Grand Slam at the French Open as the one major still missing from his collection. He is now at the tournament where his grass-court standing was confirmed, with the draw open enough that a Djokovic final remains a genuine structural possibility.
There is one variable Djokovic introduced himself. He mentioned in post-match comments that the moisture conditions on Centre Court in the early rounds create slippery footing, and that his dynamic, direction-changing movement style makes him particularly exposed. “In the moment, you’re fighting, competing, it can happen,” he said. At 39, a slip on the wrong surface at the wrong point in a deep run is not hypothetical. It is the one disclosure that complicates the otherwise polished picture of a player who looked precisely as formidable as he needed to be, Sky Sports reported.
Among the women’s results, Aryna Sabalenka converted her third match point to complete a 6-1, 7-6(9) win over McCartney Kessler after saving two set points in an extended tiebreak. Coco Gauff beat Solana Sierra 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(7) in a third-set tiebreak she won from 4-7 down, serving at 124 and 117 miles per hour on consecutive points in the deciding game. Naomi Osaka reached the third round without dropping a set, defeating Anastasia Gasanova 6-3, 6-2. The significant casualty on the women’s side was Mirra Andreeva, the fifth seed and 2026 French Open champion, who accumulated unforced errors against Barbora Krejcikova through the final two sets and lost 4-6, 7-5, 6-4. Krejcikova, who won this title in 2021, advances to the third round, ESPN reported.
Djokovic plays Rinderknech next. Sinner plays Brooksby. The third round will begin to answer whether both men’s runs carry the same efficiency Day 3 suggested, or whether the surface, the schedule, or a specific opponent starts to complicate what Wednesday established. That the 2025 final could produce a 2026 sequel on the same court needs ten more days of good fortune to resolve itself. Nothing about either performance on Wednesday made that seem unlikely.
