Milos Raonic plays a backhand during the Gentlemen's Singles second round match against Mikhail Youzhny at Wimbledon, July 6, 2017.Michael Steele/Getty Images
Milos Raonic judged himself both fantastic and just average after beating Mikhail Youzhny 3-6, 7-6 (7), 6-4, 7-5 in his quest to go one better than last year's runner-up spot at Wimbledon.
Facing multiple choice questions from reporters, the sixth-seeded Canadian did turn down option C, poor, but Raonic knew he had ridden his luck against the 35-year-old Russian on Thursday to reach Round 3.
"I think I won two points in the first two or three games. That was a bad start," said Raonic, who lost to Britain's Andy Murray in straight sets in last year's final.
Raonic, from Thornhill, Ont., picked up a key break to take a 6-5 lead in the third set. He later secured the victory with his 27th ace of the match.
"I was fortunate that I didn't get down two sets to love. He had those two set points. … He was up 6-4 in that tiebreaker. I got very lucky in those scenarios and then I sort of kept plugging away and made it count after that."
The match on the No. 2 court at the All England Club took 2 hours 40 minutes to complete. Raonic will next face 25th-seeded Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain.
Ramos-Vinolas needed five sets to complete a 7-5, 6-7 (6), 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Russia's Andrey Rublev. That match lasted 3:32.
Raonic and Ramos-Vinolas have split their two previous meetings. Raonic was victorious when they met in Davis Cup play in 2013 and Ramos-Vinolas defeated the Canadian in the round of 16 last year on clay at the French Open.
Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic had to play all three sets at Wimbledon this time.
The former champions both advanced to the third round on Thursday, two days after their opening matches ended early when their opponents retired with an injury.
Federer was broken early in his match, but the seven-time champion recovered quickly and beat Dusan Lajovic 7-6 (0), 6-3, 6-2. Djokovic, a three-time champion, defeated Adam Pavlasek 6-2, 6-2, 6-1.
Djokovic won the Wimbledon title in 2011, '14 and '15. But he has not won a major title since completing a career Grand Slam at the 2016 French Open.
In his opening two matches at the All England Club, Djokovic has only lost eight games.
"It's perfect. Exactly what I want," Djokovic said. "I don't want to have any five-set matches in there."
Djokovic will next face Ernests Gulbis, an unseeded Latvian who defeated Juan Martin del Potro 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (3).
Federer has lost 14 games so far and will next face 27th-seeded Mischa Zverev.
Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev, Grigor Dimitrov, Gaël Monfils and David Ferrer also reached the third round. Ferrer advanced when opponent Steve Darcis retired with an injury while trailing 3-0.
Darcis is the eighth man to retire during a match this week. The Belgian took a medical timeout after 18 minutes of play and was unable to continue.
One of the favourites in the women's tournament, third-seeded Karolina Pliskova, lost on Centre Court. Magdalena Rybarikova beat Pliskova 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 to reach the third round for the second time in 10 appearances.
Pliskova entered the tournament with a chance to take over the No. 1 ranking.
"My expectations were a little bit different than to make one round here," Pliskova said. "That's tennis, you know. Still, you still can play well and you don't have to win. That's my case today."
Top-seeded Angelique Kerber advanced to the third round, along with seventh-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova, ninth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska, 14th-seeded Garbine Muguruza and 24th-seeded CoCo Vandeweghe.
Also, American wild-card entry Bethanie Mattek-Sands injured her right knee during a point and retired from her second-round match.
Moving up toward the net in the opening game of the third set against Sorana Cirstea of Romania, Mattek-Sands slipped and fell. She immediately clutched her right knee. She could be heard screaming in pain and sobbing.
Two players previously eliminated from the tournament were handed fines on Thursday.
Bernard Tomic of Australia was fined $15,000 (U.S.) for unsportsmanlike conduct two days after he spoke about feeling "a little bit bored out there" during his match.
Daniil Medvedev of Russia, who threw a handful coins in the direction of the chair umpire after a second-round loss on Wednesday, was given three fines totalling $14,500.
- With files from Reuters