Juan Martin Del Potro proved that multiple wrist surgeries had not robbed him off his flowing racket skills as he knocked out fourth seed Stan Wawrinka with a 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(2), 6-3 in the second round of Wimbledon on Friday.
The Argentine, making his first appearance at Wimbledon since reaching the semi-finals in 2013, held aloft his arms in triumph after condemning twice Grand Slam champion Wawrinka to his earliest defeat at the All England Club for three years.
Wawrinka broke once to take the first set but by the time the players swapped serves for four successive games at the start of the third set, the Swiss knew he was in for a torrid afternoon against the 2009 US Open champion.
Playing under a closed Centre Court roof, Wawrinka whipped a backhand wide on match point to complete another miserable outing at the only major in which he has yet to reach at least a semi-final.
Serena survives scare to beat McHale in three-set thriller
Serena Williams composed herself after a first-set loss and a burst of anger to vanquish tenacious fellow American Christina McHale 6-7(7), 6-2, 6-4 in a nail-biting second-round match at Wimbledon.
The defending champion finally ran out a winner against the world number 65, marching on in her quest to emulate Steffi Graf's Open era record of 22 Grand Slam singles titles.
Williams thought she had won the first set and was walking back to her chair after a McHale forehand was called long with the world number one 5-4 and 40-30 up. To her chagrin, however, a Hawkeye challenge showed the ball brushing the baseline.
McHale went on to win the game and force a tiebreak in which a rattled Williams made a string of errors, including two double faults, before burying a forehand into the net to lose the set.
Furious as she sat down, she hammered her racket into the ground in frustration before hurling it behind her.
But the 34-year-old put the disappointment behind her and showed the battling form that has won her six Wimbledon crowns to take the next two sets, closing out the two-and-a-half hour match with three aces.
Federer claims another British scalp
Elegant executioner Roger Federer dropped Dan Evans through the Wimbledon trap door on Friday as he reached the fourth round of the grasscourt major with a bloodless 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 victory.
Forty eight hours after slaying world number 772 Marcus Willis, Federer claimed a second successive British scalp as he reached the second week without dropping a set at this year's championships.
Evans, the once bad boy of British tennis, was on a roll this week as never before had he won a match at the All England Club, let alone two in a row.
But if Evans, the son on an electrician, harboured hopes of going deeper into the tournament, it was not long before the seven-times champion pulled the plug on his dreams on a floodlit Centre Court.
The Swiss third seed chalked up his 150th grasscourt win with an unreturnable serve as he became the first, and so far only, man to reach the fourth round of the rain ravaged tournament.
Venus survives tough test from youthful Kasatkina
Experience wrestled aside youth at Wimbledon on Friday when Venus Williams, at 36 the oldest woman in the draw, overcame rain interruptions and Russian teenager Daria Kasatkina 7-5, 4-6, 10-8 to reach the fourth round.
Kasatkina, 19, demonstrated clearly how she has leapt 128 places up the rankings in the last year, saving two match points, one after a lengthy rain stoppage.
The women were forced off court with Williams on match point as the heavens opened for a third time in the match, the scoreboard showing 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 and 40-30 in the eighth seed's favour. Kasatkina won the next three points using a hefty serve.
"This was like something out of a movie," a beaming Williams said.
Five-times champion Williams, who suffered peaks and troughs of form throughout the two hour 41 minute match, finally downed the 29th-seeded Wimbledon debutant on her third match point with a thundering return that the Russian dumped in the net.
Kasatkina was just a few weeks old when Williams first played at Wimbledon in 1997 and it was the older woman who held her nerve to the last.
"It wasn't easy to play out there today," the American said.
Kyrgios tames Brown to reach third round
The good, bad and ugly sides of Nick Kyrgios were on display as the Australian firebrand beat German showman Dustin Brown 6-7(3), 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 to reach the Wimbledon third round.
A wild five-setter fully lived up to its pre-match billing and the crowd on Court Two were treated to some astonishing points, and histrionics from Kyrgios, as the 15th seed survived.
He will next play either Italian Fabio Fognini or Spain's Feliciano Lopez.
After losing the opener to an inspired Brown on the tiebreak, Kyrgios rattled through the second set in 19 minutes before he went off the rails in spectacular fashion.
Ranting and raving at his support team and not even trying on certain points, Kyrgios found himself staring at defeat as the dreadlocked Brown produced moments of rare magic.
But he regained some semblance of control and his undoubted class told as he broke wildcard Brown's serve in the seventh game of the decider following a rain interruption.
It proved decisive as he wrapped it up on serve when Brown slapped a forehand return long.
Tsonga and Berdych finally negotiate round two
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was in no mood to hang about on Friday, racing to a one-set lead in just 18 minutes against Argentina's Juan Monaco some three hours after they first warmed up on another rain-interrupted day at Wimbledon.
The pair were among eight matchups at the bottom of the men's draw waiting to play their round two matches at the start of day five, while players in the top half, like Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, were scheduled to play round three.
Monaco put the brakes on the Frenchman in the second and third sets and Tsonga's service level dipped, but the 12th seed won through 6-1, 6-4, 6-3 in one hour 23 minutes - the third fastest men's match of the tournament so far.
The rain delays, which had also held up eight women's second round ties, have prompted organisers to consider playing matches on Sunday, usually a rest day.
Tsonga, twice a semi-finalist at the grasscourt major, and Monaco, a former top-10 player, warmed up in drizzle around noon but the match was suspended before a ball was struck in earnest.
Speaking of his relief at finally reaching the third round, he said: "... especially because now today I'm waiting for my match. So, yeah, I'm really happy the way it goes today because it's better to go back home tonight than stay here."
Czech 10th seed Tomas Berdych also sped through to beat the rain, downing Germany's Benjamin Becker 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 and taking just a minute longer than Tsonga to secure his place in round three.
Berdych was sanguine about how the rain dice rolled.
"I think it's fair. In the first round I was ... I about to finish a couple of points and then get rain delay overnight. Came next day and he was obviously better at the start," he told reporters, referring to his four-set first-round win over Croatian Ivan Dodig.
"So that one was, I would say, unlucky. This one I was lucky."
France's Lucas Pouille, seeded 32, also made it through, defeating American Donald Young and comeback king Juan Martin Del Potro stole the headlines by beating fourth seed Stan Wawrinka on Centre Court.
