Australia’s Wimbledon challenge has been reinvigorated with the national No 1s Alex de Minaur and Daria Kasatkina claiming wins on day two.
After a disastrous first day that saw seven Australians knocked out, the pair raced into the second round by early afternoon and were swiftly joined by Aleksandar Vukic.
On another hot day in London, 16th seed Kasatkina became the first Aussie woman to clear the opening hurdle with a 7-5 6-3 victory over Colombian Emiliana Arango.
Having lost her three matches on grass this season, it was no surprise Kasatkina made hard work of subduing her lively opponent, and she revealed she had been so nervous in her first Wimbledon since switching her allegiance to Australia that she vomited outside just before entering court 14.
“A lot of people saw it five metres from the court. I vomit, so just before entering the court, yes, the little accident happened, like, completely out of nerves,” she explained.
“There was nothing else wrong with me except this. The nerves came from not having enough confidence, losing couple of matches in a row, playing the first match of the day.”
She did not help her cause by dishing up 11 double faults and 38 unforced errors against the world No 76, but the South American contributed to her own defeat, making 39 errors of her own.
De Minaur was far more authoritative in his first grand slam appearance since taking a break after his calamitous second-round exit at the French Open, beating Spain’s Roberto Carballes Baena 6-2 6-2 7-6 (7-2) in two hours 25 minutes.
Despite a delay for an unwell ball boy just as he was serving to stay in the third set at 5-6, de Minaur came through.
The No 11 seed’s form was encouraging given his lack of match practice on grass. He had skipped his defence of ‘s-Hertogenbosch to recover from feeling burned out after his early exit from Roland Garros, then lost in the first round at Queen’s Club.
Vukic had a useful workout in beating Chinese Taipei’s Chun-Hsin Tseng 6-3 6-4 4-6 7-6 (7-5) in four minutes over three hours.
That set up a daunting meeting with world No 1 Jannik Sinner who made an impressive start to his Wimbledon campaign beating compatriot Luca Nardi 6-4 6-3 6-0.
However, two Aussie qualifiers lost. Priscilla Hon went down 6-2 7-5 to Russian 18th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova while Sydney’s James McCabe struggled on his Wimbledon main draw debut, well beaten 6-1 6-4 6-3 by Hungary’s world No.58, Fabian Marozsan.
