Wimbledon, Day 4 men’s roundup: Federer wins, Nadal beats Kyrgios in grudge match; Cilic, Isner out

Eight-time champion Roger Federer eased into the third round of Wimbledon on Thursday, beating British wild card Jay Clarke 6-1, 7-6 (7/3), 6-2 to equal American legend Jimmy Connors’s record of 17 appearances in the last 32.

Rafael Nadal beat Nick Kyrgios 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(5), 7-6(3) n a grudge match to set up a third-round meeting with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

The eight-time Wimbledon champion, who is chasing a 21st major crown, unleashed 46 winners past the battling world No 169.

“I struggled to take care of business a bit from the baseline,” said 37-year-old Federer who has now reached the third round at the Slams for the 70th time.

“Thankfully I played a pretty good breaker, I had some help from him as he gave me a couple of unforced errors.”

Federer and Nadal’s half of the draw lost two of the potentially more awkward customers in big serving duo John Isner and Marin Cilic.

Ninth-seeded Isner, who played in the epic semi-final last year with Kevin Anderson which lasted over six hours, fell in five sets to unseeded Kazakh Mikhail Kukushkin 6-4, 6-7 (3/7), 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 in just over three hours of play.

Cilic, the 13th seed and finalist in 2017, lost in straight sets to Portugal’s Joao Sousa, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.