Top seed Sinner cruises into Wimbledon second round

Coverage: Live across BBC TV, radio and online with extensive coverage on BBC iPlayer, Red Button, Connected TVs and mobile app. Full coverage guide.

World number one Jannik Sinner cruised into the second round at Wimbledon with a dominant straight-set win over fellow Italian Luca Nardi.

Contesting his first Grand Slam match since losing one of the all-time great French Open finals to Carlos Alcaraz last month, the top seed lost just seven games as he dismissed 95th-ranked Nardi.

The 23-year-old, a three-time major winner, comprehensively outclassed his opponent in a 6-4 6-3 6-0 victory on Court One.

After completing an efficient victory in one hour and 48 minutes on the UK’s hottest day of the year, Sinner will face Australian Aleksandar Vukic next.

“New tournament, new chances, new challenges,” Sinner said, reflecting on his French Open loss.

“You have one opponent at a time, so obviously I try to keep going and enjoy playing here.

“If you don’t enjoy playing on these courts, I don’t know where you will enjoy [it]. I’m very happy to be here and let’s see what is coming.”

Nardi, 21, offered resistance in the first set and managed to escape the first five break points he faced.

But it was not long before Sinner asserted himself.

Eventually taking his seventh opportunity to clinch the breakthrough and capture the first set, Sinner carried that momentum into the second as he raced into a 3-0 lead.

The gulf between the players became increasingly apparent as the match wore on, with Nardi unable to live with Sinner’s devastating combination of pace, power and precision hitting.

While the second set lasted less than 40 minutes, the third barely stretched beyond 20 as Sinner sealed victory with a third-set whitewash.

Sinner ended the match with 28 winners compared with just 17 unforced errors as he demonstrated why he has reached at least the quarter-finals at Wimbledon for the past three years.

This performance was achieved despite his only pre-Wimbledon grass-court tournament at the Halle Open being cut short by a surprise second-round loss to Alexander Bublik.

But, after his devastating defeat by Alcaraz in Paris, in which he squandered a two-set lead and three championship points in a five-and-a-half-hour epic, Sinner has announced his arrival as one of the title favourites at SW19.

Also in the men’s draw, Italian seventh seed Lorenzo Musetti suffered a surprise first-round loss to qualifier Nikoloz Basilashvili, of Georgia.

Musetti, a Wimbledon semi-finalist last year, was beaten 6-2 4-6 7-5 6-1 on court two.

He becomes the third top-10 seed to fall at the All England Club, after Danish eighth seed Holger Rune and Russian ninth seed Daniil Medvedev both exited the tournament on Monday.

Alexander Bublik, the 28th seed and winner of the Halle Open in the build-up to Wimbledon, served for the match in the fourth set against Spain’s Jaume Munar but eventually lost 6-4 3-6 4-6 7-6 (7-5) 6-2.

American fifth seed Taylor Fritz returned to complete a five-set comeback victory after his match against Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard was suspended late on Monday.

Fritz, twice a quarter-finalist in SW19 and who prepared for this year’s Wimbledon by winning grass-court tournaments in Eastbourne and Stuttgart, triumphed 6-7 (6-8) 6-7 (8-10) 6-4 7-6 (8-6) 6-4.