When Ernests Gulbis said on Tuesday, after his first win of any kind for 13 months, that he still felt like a top-10 player, it was hard to take him seriously. But yesterday he added weight to his words with a convincing, impressive 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 victory over Juan Martín Del Potro, the No29 seed, to reach the third round at Wimbledon for the first time since 2013.
The 28-year-old Latvian needed to use a protected ranking to get into the main draw, a serious wrist injury having dropped him down to No 589, a number he says he doesn’t even like to look at. His win over Del Potro will move him back inside the top 350 and heading in the right direction to where he believes he can be, back in the top 10.
“I played well my first-round match,” said Gulbis, who now plays three-time champion Novak Djokovic. “This match I played really, really great tennis. I served well, I returned well. In my opinion, Del Potro is one of the best players. I was happy that in the third set, even that I got a little bit maybe tight and he played well when he broke me back, I still managed to win in the tiebreak.”
It is three years since Gulbis was in the top 10. Soon after, he said he was on his “last chance train”, having failed to back up his performances. He also feels he is still young enough to have another crack. “I was wrong,” he said, with a smile. “Maybe now is the last-chance train. Maybe [there] is going to be another last chance in five years. Who knows? Now the age [of top players] comes more and more. So I have another eight years to play.”
Gulbis banged down 25 aces in a superb serving performance and equally importantly, did a great job in keeping Del Potro from dominating with his forehand. The Argentinian was constantly kept off balance by the guile of Gulbis, who used his drop shots and lobs to great effect. Even a 20-minute break in the second set when two spectators fell ill didn’t put him off and he won the tiebreak 7-3 to set up his clash with Djokovic. “I had nothing to lose in this match and I played well,” he said. “I’m going to have even less to lose next match. Maybe I’ll play even better.”
Last year’s runner-up, Milos Raonic, came through a tough match with Mikhail Youzhny, eventually seeing off the Russian 3-6, 7-6, 6-4, 7-5. The No10 seed Alexander Zverev gave the American teenager Francis Tiafoe a bit of a lesson with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 win and Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov, a semi-finalist in 2014, crushed Marcos Baghdatis 6-3, 6-2, 6-1.
Meanwhile, Kyle Edmund’s hopes of ever becoming as revered as Andy Murray at the All England Club remain distant after his latest setback on grass, but he at least introduced himself to Centre Court with enough verve to suggest that he will be invited back.
The generous applause that greeted the vanquished British No2 stemmed from respect for the 22-year-old’s skill, even though his record on grass brings to mind Marat Safin’s famous quip about the stuff being more suited to cows than tennis, and there was also a sense of what might have been after an entertainingly flawed encounter that at times resembled a staring contest. Gaël Monfils always brings an impatient streak to the fray, but too often it was Edmund, eyes watering, who blinked first during the rally.
Driven to distraction by the elastic-limbed 15th seed’s agile scrambling, playing the waiting game was beyond Edmund. While he hit 36 clean winners, he also made 27 unforced errors, seven more than Monfils, who will play his fellow Frenchman Adrian Mannarino in the third round after winning 7-6, 6-4, 6-4 in two hours and 12 minutes.
“The positive is I got my first Wimbledon win [against Alex Ward], which is nice,” Edmund said. “I’ll try to keep working on it.”
Edmund held his own in a fun opening set, matching Monfils in several blistering exchanges, but he failed to convert three break points in the ninth game and his inexperience bubbled to the surface in the tie-break.
The second set was frustrating for Edmund. He battled back from a break down, only for a wretched service game at 4-4 to gift the advantage to Monfils, whose seventh ace established a commanding lead.
Suspecting that Monfils might yet conspire against himself, defiance rippled through Edmund, who soared to 3-0 at the start of set three.
Yet Monfils brilliantly quelled the comeback, banging a backhand down the line to lead 4-3 before serving it out comfortably. In the end, there were more questions than answers for the British No2.
