Sinner thrashes Vukic as Djokovic delivers ruthless lesson to Evans
The Italian was streets ahead of the 93rd-ranked Vukic who barely laid a glove on the top seed in the opening two sets before saving face with some third-set resistance.
Sinner, bidding to win the title for the first time, never loosened his grip on a one-sided contest although he did need six match points to finish off Vukic in a prolonged final game.
There was never any chance of a repeat of last month's French Open final when he squandered three match points in a spellbinding clash with Carlos Alcaraz though, and he duly slammed down his 12th ace as the light began to fade.
"I struggled a bit to close it out. I'm very happy, Centre Court is such a special occasion," Sinner said.
"Yes, I enjoyed (the last game) because I won the game! If not, I don't know. The match can change very, very quickly. If he breaks me there it can go long distance."
Apart from a defeat by Alexander Bublik in Halle in the build-up to Wimbledon, Sinner has shown few ill-effects from the heartache of losing to Alcaraz in Paris.
He parted ways with his trainer and physiotherapist, Marco Panichi and Ulises Badio, days before Wimbledon, but even that strange timing does not seem to have ruffled his feathers.
With so many seeds having fallen by the wayside already, his path through to the latter stages looks clear.
Dismantled 6-3 6-2 6-0 by Novak Djokovic on Centre Court on Thursday, Britain's Dan Evans found solace in what could be his final bow on tennis's most famous stage.
"When you're 35, you've got more perspective than when you're 21," he said. "I wanted to win the match. I believed I could win the match. I felt confident going into the match. It's just such a hard task at hand, and that's it.
"I'm not going to say I enjoyed it or didn't enjoy it. I understand the occasion and what a moment it was for myself to go out there and experience everything today."
The veteran Briton, who beat Djokovic in the pair's only other meeting but is now ranked outside the top 150 in the world, acknowledged that he had been outclassed from the opening game. "I felt like I was always on the back foot," he said.
"I'd say, if I had to sum it up, it felt the tennis balls were back in my pocket very quickly and never stayed in there a long time."
Despite the lopsided scoreline, Evans embraced the magnitude of the occasion, particularly in the closing stages. "The last probably four or five games, I really soaked it up, and I did enjoy it, yeah," he reflected.
Evans praised Djokovic's tactical brilliance, noting how the seven-times Wimbledon champion served "like a big server" despite his modest 1.85-metre frame. "Today he served spots. I don't think he got over 130 (mph), but every serve was a spot," Evans observed.
With his ranking having slipped and his body feeling the toll of professional tennis, Evans faces an uncertain future.
"Waking up after playing matches is hard now," he admitted with characteristic honesty. "It's just not as easy as it used to be - without sounding Andy Murray-esque dramatic."
Jaume Munar would have found it almost impossible to forgive himself if he had not reached the third round of Wimbledon on Thursday after the unseeded Spaniard wasted 10 matchpoints before finally seeing off Fabian Marozsan.
The 28-year-old, who toppled tournament dark horse Alexander Bublik in the opening round, beat Hungarian Marozsan 6-2 6-3 7-6(9) after a dramatic third set where things threatened to spiral out of his control when victory was in his grasp.
There were high hopes that Jack Draper would rescue what had been a lousy day for the home nation at Wimbledon when he emerged for his second-round showdown against a rival who was ranked outside the world's Top 1000 just 10 months ago.
Add in the fact that his 36-year-old opponent had been hobbled by injuries in recent years, had won back-to-back matches on the main tour only once in the last nine months and had never beaten a Top-5 player on grass in his entire career - and a younger and fitter Draper seemed a shoo-in for victory.
Unfortunately for the 23-year-old Briton the opponent he ran into was called Marin Cilic, a man with a proven Grand Slam pedigree who had won the U.S. Open in 2014 and finished runner-up at the All England Club in 2017.
Despite now plying his trade mostly on the second-tier Challenger circuit after his ranking went into freefall following knee surgery in 2023, the Croatian felt right at home in front of a packed Court One and produced an inspired performance to topple fourth seed Draper 6-4 6-3 1-6 6-4.
Iga Swiatek may not love the grass but relishes a battle whatever the surface and showed all that fight and bullish determination as she recovered to beat American Caty McNally 5-7 6-2 6-1 and reach the Wimbledon third round on Thursday.
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