Wimbledon: Carlos Alcaraz beat Struff to reach fourth round

LONDON: Defending Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz won another tough encounter, getting the better of German Jan-Lennard Struff by 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 and reaching the fourth round on Friday.

An off-colour Alcaraz, who came victorious over Italian veteran Fabio Fognini in a hard-fought five-set opener before dominating British Oliver Tarvet in the last round, begs the question of which avatar of the Spaniard would turn up.

Alcaraz began the match with a double fault and sprayed errors on Centre Court, but made a comeback to book a clash with Andrey Rublev in the next round.

Alcaraz avoided being broken himself in his second service game and then broke his opponent for a 3-1 lead, gaining the momentum he needed in the match before wrapping up the opening set on serve, hitting a huge ace on set point.

But Struff was flying in the second set; he recovered an early break and went on to level the match comfortably.

However, in the second game of the third set, a double fault from Struff gave Alcaraz the platform to rebuild his lead, and the two-time Wimbledon champion never looked back from there until he closed it out with another big serve.

Alcaraz, who went to deuce in each of his first four service games in the fourth set, took advantage of Struff's carelessness in the ninth game before pulling away for his 21st consecutive tour-level match victory.

Meanwhile, Russian Karen Khachanov defeated Portuguese Nuno Borges by 7-6 (8), 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (10) to book a place in the round of 16.