There were no second-round hiccups for Roger Federer at Wimbledon this year as he breezed past qualifier Gilles Muller under the Centre Court roof. Last year Federer suffered his earliest grand slam defeat in a decade when Sergiy Stakhovsky caused one of the great Wimbledon upsets.
Like Stakhovsky, Luxembourg’s Muller plays a serve-volley game, but Federer dealt well with the threat this time to win in front of his parents, who were watching from the Royal Box. The roof was deployed for the first time this tournament at 4-3 in the second set, with Muller complaining that the grass was becoming slippery before steady rain began to fall. But it did not help the 31-year-old as Federer wrapped up a 6-3, 7-5, 6-3 victory and reached the fourth round.
World number one Rafael Nadal dug his way out of deep trouble to gain revenge over his 2012 Wimbledon conqueror Lukas Rosol. Nadal had beaten Rosol when they met on the hard courts of Doha at the start of the year, with the Spaniard going on to win the ATP title there. The second seed was a set down and 5-3 behind in a second-set tie-break but recovered from that threatening position to win 4-6, 7-6, 6-4, 6-4 on Centre Court.
On the women’s side. Five-time champion Serena Williams wasted no time in reaching the third round, routing Chanelle Scheepers 6-1, 6-1 in just 49 minutes. Williams served eight aces and had 26 winners. The 30-year-old Scheepers, who had never won a match at Wimbledon until this week, had only five winners to go with 13 unforced errors. Williams, coming off a second-round loss at the French Open, is playing in her 15th Wimbledon and 56th Grand Slam tournament.
Maria Sharapova put in a business-like performance to cast aside qualifier Timea Bacsinszky 6-2, 6-1 in only an hour on her way to the third round. The fifth seed broke Bacsinszky’s serve five times, forcing her Swiss opponent to scramble left and right to retrieve powerful groundstrokes. Sharapova, the world’s highest-earning sportswoman, has lost only four games through the first two rounds.