"Today was a bit weird in the beginning, because there was supposed to be no rain, then it started raining," said No. 6 Holger Rune, who eliminated British wild-card entry George Loffhagen 7-6 (4), 6-3, 6-2 in a first-rounder that was originally supposed to be held Tuesday. "It was a little bit frustrating at the end."
Consider: While four players who got to play at the two arenas with retractable roofs already are into the third round, including Djokovic and the No. 1 woman, Iga Swiatek, there remain 14 entrants who have yet to contest a single point in the first round. That latter group includes 2019 U.S. Open champion Bianca Andreescu, 2020 U.S. Open runner-up Alexander Zverev and Karolina Muchova, who lost to Swiatek in last month's French Open final.
"For sure, it's really comfortable," Swiatek said after beating Sara Sorribes Tormo 6-2, 6-0 at Centre Court. "I'm happy that my matches were scheduled under the roof, so I always was certain that it's going to actually happen. It's a little bit easier to prepare knowing that."
The others moving into the third round were Jannik Sinner and Daria Kasatkina.
Djokovic, owner of a men's-record 23 Grand Slam trophies, was two points from dropping the second set against Jordan Thompson before sealing that tiebreaker with an ace, then jutting his right index finger against his temple while strutting to the sideline along the way to winning 6-3, 7-6 (4), 7-5.
Seeking a record-tying eighth Wimbledon championship, and record-tying fifth in a row, he was on Centre Court — where he's won 41 times in a row — and so did not need to deal with the sorts of stops and starts endured by players such as Americans Taylor Fritz, the No. 9 seed, and
Frances Tiafoe, who is No. 10.
Fritz's first-round match against Yannick Hanfmann of Germany was suspended midway through the fifth set all the way back on Monday and never resumed Tuesday. So Fritz did a lot of stewing until he finally was able to get back on No. 2 Court to wrap up his 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-3 triumph.
"It's tough to kind of just be sitting on that, thinking about it for like two days. You're potentially (with) 15 minutes left in a match at the very end of it, and for it to be a Grand Slam, fifth set, it kind of adds to it," Fritz said. "I spent most of the time sitting on the bench near my locker in the locker room, just like on my phone, like YouTube videos, whatever. Just killing time."
Tiafoe seemed a lot less fussed.
He and Wu Yibing of China were originally due to play Tuesday, but began Wednesday. Tiafoe won 7-6 (4), 6-3, 6-4.
