Novak Djokovic of Serbia, the first seed in London, played his second round match of the 2016 Wimbledon Championship on Centre Court on Wednesday afternoon. His opponent was Frenchman Adrian Mannarino, ranked 55 in the world.
The Frenchman played well and gave Djokovic a decent fight but in the key moments, the Serb had the upper hand. Djokovic managed to win in three sets despite his struggle towards the end of the third set and took the match 6-4, 6-3, 7-6(5) in two hours and four minutes. In the third round, the world number one will face American Sam Querrey or Brazilian Tomas Bellucci.
Djokovic Made to Work for the First Set
Mannarino started the match well and showed Djokovic he was ready for the challenge. The world number 55 got a chance to break the Serb in the first game of the match but the world number one saved it and held. The Frenchman then held his first service game to love and made it 1-1. Djokovic realized it wasn't going to be easy but he kept playing a solid game, won his next service game and even had the chance to break Manarrino in the fourth game but he missed it with a forehand unforced error.
The next five games were won straightforwardly by the server and at 5-4 to Djokovic, the 28-year-old Frenchman found himself serving to stay in the set. The Serb sensed that was the moment to pounce and he stepped up his game and broke Mannarino to take the set 6-4 in 35 minutes.
An Early Break is Enough for Djokovic to Claim the Second Set
Djokovic, who had the momentum after winning the first set, started the second set strongly by taking the first three games. The Frenchman stopped the run of five games against him and won the fourth game to reduce the deficit to 3-1. The Serb had no problem in his next service game and he won it to love. Mannarino kept fighting and did well to keep holding his service games but he couldn't trouble the defending champion on serve and wasn't able to create even one break-point opportunity for himself. Djokovic won the second set 6-3 in only 34 minutes.
Djokovic Clinches the Third Set in a Tiebreaker
The 29-year-old Serb looked to finish the third set, and match, as quick as possible and started applying more pressure on Mannarino. The Frenchman almost handed Djokovic the initiative in the beginning of the third set when he played a sloppy first service game to gift the Serb a break point, but he saved it with an ace and ultimately held.
The Frenchman raised his level in the next game and got himself three break points in a row but Djokovic saved them all. The Serb failed to close out the game and handed his opponent two more break points but the Frenchman failed to capitalize on them and Djokovic finally held in the longest game of the match.
The next four games were routine holds and at 3-3, the top seed finally managed to get the break he was looking for. The Serb consolidated the break and went 5-3 up, forcing the world number 55 to serve in order to try and stay in the tournament; he did so impressively, holding to love.
At that point, Djokovic was serving for the set at 5-4 and everyone was expecting him to do so with ease but he got nervous and shaky and the Frenchman was finally able to break him, in his eighth break point of the match. Both players held their next service game and it was tiebreaker time.
The world number one got off to a better start and after four straight points going with serve, he finally claimed the first mini-break to go 3-2 up. He then won both his points on serve and increased the lead to 5-2. Mannarino wasn't ready to throw in the towel just yet and reduced it to 5-4 but a backhand unforced error from him in the following point handed the Serb two match points; Djokovic missed the first point on his serve but won his second match point on Mannarino's serve to take the tiebreaker 7-5 and claim the third set in 59 minutes.
A Look at the Final Match Statistics
Both players didn't excel in the aces department; Djokovic had six while Mannarino had five. The world number one committed eight double points to only three from his opponent. Djokovic served better, winning 84 percent of the points behind his first serve and 47 behind his second serve versus 75 percent and 44 percent for Mannarino, respectively.
The Serb broke three times from seven opportunities while the Frenchman only managed to take one from nine. The world number one had seven fewer winners than his opponent (23 versus 30), but also 21 unforced errors less (21 versus 42). At the end of the day, he won 107 points, 16 more than his opponent.