Carlos Alcaraz made a stumbling start to his Wimbledon title defence on Monday before coming through in straight sets against Estonian qualifier Mark Lajal.
The Spanish third seed was taken to a tie-break in the opening set and trailed 2-0 against his unheralded opponent in the second but held his nerve to win 7-6 , 7-5, 6-2.Alcaraz, still only 21, is chasing his fourth Grand Slam title and hopes to become just the sixth man after Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic to win the French Open and Wimbledon back-to-back.
But the 269th-ranked player put up an impressive fight against his illustrious opponent on Centre Court, forcing the first break of the match, which was cancelled out straight away by Alcaraz. Alcaraz, who struck 44 winners in total, stepped up a gear in the third set, winning 92 per cent of points on his first serve.
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