Wimbledon: Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz extends winning streak to reach 4th round

Defending Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz was put through the wringer again on Friday before moving into the fourth round but fellow Grand Slam winners Naomi Osaka and Madison Keys fell by the wayside at the All England Club.

Alcaraz pushed to the limit and taken to four sets by German Jan-Lennard Struff before the second seed prevailed 6-1 3-6 6-3 6-4 after some luck towards the end of the match.

A missed volley with an open court in front of him halted Struff's momentum after eight games and Alcaraz pounced shortly afterwards for the break he needed to lay the platform for a hard-fought victory.

"He missed that volley... I still can't believe that I'm standing here," Alcaraz said, admitting it had been a difficult day for him in the office.

"I was suffering in every service game that I did... 0-30s and breakpoints down. It was stressful. Every time he could push me, he did. I was trying to survive."

Struff's compatriot Laura Siegemund, the oldest woman left in the singles draw at 37, earlier sealed a 6-3 6-3 victory over Australian Open champion Keys, who joined the exodus of star players at the year's third Grand Slam.

Sixth seed Keys looked a far cry from the player who lifted her maiden major in Melbourne this year, the American racking up 31 unforced errors and producing wayward serves on her way out of the door.

Taylor Fritz ensured that there would still be some Fourth of July celebrations for Americans at Wimbledon as some final-set fireworks moved him into the last 16 with a 6-4 6-3 6-7(5) 6-1 win over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.

The fifth seed, who has spent more than nine hours on court across 14 grueling sets, said he was fresher than ever ahead of his meeting with Australian Jordan Thompson.

"This is going to sound crazy," said Fritz, who has been suffering tendinitis in his knee and had to deal with a bruised arm after a fall.

"My body is actually feeling better after each match," he said. "I feel like somehow it felt the worst after my first round but now it's getting better."

Ben Shelton, who was left seething after his second-round clash with Rinky Hijikata was suspended late on Thursday, hit three aces — two clocked at 140 mph — and an unreturned second serve to take his place in the last 32.

Amanda Anisimova progressed to the fourth round with a 6-3 5-7 6-3 win over Hungarian Dalma Galfi.

Sabalenka holds off Radacanu

Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka staved off an upset bid by resurgent Emma Raducanu at Wimbledon by beating the home favorite 7-6 (6), 6-4 in the third-round at a raucous Centre Court on Friday night.

Sabalenka, a two-time semifinalist at the All England Club, fought back in both sets against the the 2021 U.S. Open champion, who had been playing some of her best tennis since her title run at Flushing Meadows as a qualifier at age 18.

In a 74-minute first set, Sabalenka converted her eighth set point, which came 30 minutes after the first.

Raducanu went up 4-2, only to see Sabalenka reel off 11 of 12 points during one stretch while moving out front by a 5-4 score.

Then arrived an epic game, lasting 13 minutes and containing 22 points, eight deuces, and seven set points for Sabalenka — all ending with Raducanu holding serve.

Then, Raducanu had a set point while leading 6-5 in the tiebreaker, but Sabalenka saved it with a drop-shot winner and took the last three points of the set — ending it with a volley winner.

The fans provided extra energy for the British player, cheering wildly when Raducanu fired winners and exhaling "aww!" when she missed.

Sabalenka, a three-time Grand Slam champion, said she pretended the cheers were for her.

"Guys wow — what an atmosphere. My ears are still hurting. It was super loud," she said in an on-court interview.

In the second set, Raducanu broke to 3-1 and led 4-1 at the 1-hour, 35-minute mark, but Sabalenka reeled off the last five games.

Raducanu, ranked No. 40, had defeated 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova in the previous round.

"She pushed me really hard to get this win. I'm happy to see her healthy and back on track," Sabalenka said. "I'm pretty sure that soon she's going to be back in the top 10."

Sabalenka reached the final at each of the past three Grand Slam tournaments, winning the U.S. Open last September and finishing as the runner-up to Madison Keys at the Australian Open in January and to Coco Gauff at the French Open in June.

Osaka ousted

Osaka might be more comfortable on grass courts these days but she will once again leave Wimbledon in the third round after a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 loss to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Friday.

Osaka said afterward that she was upset by the result because she "actually thought I could play well, like, in general" and "make a deep run here."

"I wanted to do better than I did before," she said. "Also, I felt like I was trying so hard."

Asked what positives she can take away from the grass-court portion of the season, Osaka replied: "I'm just going to be a negative human being today. I'm so sorry. I have nothing positive to say about myself, which is something I'm working on."

She is a former No. 1 now ranked 50th and a four-time Grand Slam champion, all on hard courts — she won the U.S. Open and Australian Open twice apiece.

Osaka arrived at the All England Club this year having lost three of her last four matches at the place and with a career record of 5-4 there. Her best showing was getting to the third round in 2017 and 2018; she missed the tournament in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

After a victory earlier this week, she spoke about how she played with fear on grass for years because of a knee injury she got by slipping on the surface nearly a decade ago, but was feeling better about it lately.

"With age, fear kind of crept along and, I guess, paralyzed me, in a way," she said. "Now I'm kind of just getting over that and trying to spread my wings on grass. I think it is working, and I think I am moving pretty well."

But from 4-all in the third set Friday, Pavlyuchenkova grabbed eight of the match's last 10 points, holding at love, then breaking in the final game with the help of a trio of forehand unforced errors by Osaka.

"A majority of you were cheering for Naomi, but that's OK," Pavlyuchenkova, who turned 34 on Thursday, told the crowd at Court No. 2. "I'm mentally tough, so that didn't bother me at all. The opposite: It gave me energy."

Pavlyuchenkova, who is ranked 53rd, was the 2021 runner-up at the French Open, and Friday's victory moved her into the fourth round at Wimbledon for the first time since she was a quarterfinalist nine years ago.

Osaka, meanwhile, already was looking ahead to the next part of the season — on the North American hard courts leading into the U.S. Open, which begins on Aug. 24.

"I'm glad to be done with this," she said, "and I'm looking forward to the hard courts."

Dabrowski moves on

Canada's Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand partner Erin Routliffe advanced to the third round of the women's doubles draw at Wimbledon on Friday.

The No. 2 seeds scored a straight sets (6-3, 6-3) win against Turkey's Zeynep Sönmez and Polina Kudermetova, converting four of 13 break-point chances and winning 78 per cent of their second-serve points.

Dabrowski and Routliffe are looking to add a second Grand Slam title after winning the 2023 U.S. Open. Routliffe, who grew up near Toronto and lives in Montreal, represents her native New Zealand internationally.

The duo also captured the WTA Finals title in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last November.

Dabrowski, the lone Canadian still competing at Wimbledon, is also competing in mixed doubles with Croatia's Nikola Mektić at the All England Club.

They face Germany's Laura Siegemund and France's Édouard Roger-Vasselin on Saturday.