Iga Swiatek passed a test at Wimbledon to extend her winning streak to 37 matches, tying the longest run in women’s tennis in 32 years.
Swiatek, the top seed from Poland, grinded 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 past 30-year-old, 138th-ranked Dutchwoman Lesley Pattinama Kerkhove, a lucky loser facing a top-10 player for the first time and who has never made it to the third round of a major.
“The grass is pretty tricky for me,” Swiatek said. “I guess you can see that I’m not playing maybe as efficiently as on other surfaces.
“I would play well on grass if I would have kind of more time to just play on this surface. Every year it [the grass court season] is only like four weeks, so I feel it’s not enough to learn properly.”
If Swiatek wins her third round match, against 37th-ranked French veteran Alize Cornet, she will break her tie with Martina Hingis for the longest win streak since Steffi Graf won 66 in a row in 1989-90. Hingis won her first 37 matches in 1997 before being upset by Iva Majoli in the French Open final.
Also Thursday, Rafael Nadal dispatched Lithuanian Ricardas Berankis 6-4, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 after waiting out nearly an hour delay to close the roof for rain during the fourth set. Nadal, halfway to a calendar Grand Slam, next gets No. 27 seed Lorenzo Sonego of Italy.
Coco Gauff, the French Open runner-up to Swiatek, breezed past Romanian Mihaela Buzarnescu 6-2, 6-3. She gets countrywoman Amanda Anisimova in the third round.
Katie Boulter kept Great Britain from a losing streak on Centre Court. Boulter, ranked 118th, took out 2021 Wimbledon runner-up Karolina Pliskova 3-6, 7-6 (4), 6-4 a day after Emma Raducanu and Andy Murray lost on the most famous court in tennis.
Liam Broady extended the British momentum by upsetting No. 12 seed Diego Schwartzman 6-2, 4-6, 0-6, 7-6 (6), 6-1.
Brandon Nakashima notched one of the biggest wins for a U.S. man at a major in recent years, dispatching No. 13 Denis Shapovalov 6-2, 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (6).
Nakahsima, ranked 56th, gets 109th-ranked Daniel Elahi Galan of Colombia in the third round. Galan advanced via walkover after No. 17 seed Roberto Bautista Agut became the third male top-20 seed to withdraw due to COVID.
No. 4 Stefanos Tsitsipas and Nick Kyrgios each won to set up an anticipated third-round meeting.
OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!