CENTRE COURT — Emma Raducanu credited an evening spent watching the Euros for her scrappy Wimbledon win over lucky loser Renata Zarazua 7-6, 6-3.

Raducanu, 21, will now face Belgium’s Elise Mertens on Wednesday, hoping to reach the third round of her home slam for the first time since her breakthrough in 2021.

The 2021 US Open champion, who missed Wimbledon last year through injury, was forced to a tie-break in a tight opener, but subsequently won all seven points to take a set lead.

And a solitary break of serve in the second set was enough for Raducanu to seal victory in just under two hours, but she likened her 30 unforced errors to England’s narrow win over Slovakia on Sunday night.

“I was for sure nervous I think everyone could see that in my tennis,” Raducanu said.

“Watching the football last night it was like winning ugly. It all counts.”

She added: “It was an incredibly difficult match.

“I’ve barely if ever played a defender who’s landed the ball on the baseline or just kept getting it back.”

Raducanu had been expecting to face Ekaterina Alexandrova, the Russian No 22 seed, until the morning of the match when she pulled out through illness.

Alexandrova is no stranger to the grass, having won the title in Rosemalen last year before reaching the fourth round at SW19.

Her replacement though is far less au fait with the surface; Zarazua had won exactly half of her career grass-court matches and at tour level she had only won one match on the surface before coming to qualifying a week ago.

And the Mexican had limited grand slam experience too, having only won one match in the main draw of a major, and that came at the the autumnal 2020 French Open behind closed doors.

Playing Raducanu on Centre Court could hardly be more different from Roland Garros in October, but that was the task she was handed at just a few hours’ notice.

And she was greeted in the match by a fiery Raducanu backhand return, a clean winner off the first serve of the match. But it was Zarazua who had the first break point of the match, only to see it vanish in the face of another Raducanu backhand winner, one of five in total in the set.

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However, Zarazua’s style, finding unusual angles in defence and deploying high spinning drop shots to great effects, made her hard to put away. Raducanu drew first blood in the fifth game but was pegged back as her forehand rhythm deserted her.

Fortunately though it returned in the nick of time in the tie-break, just as Zarazua’s willingness to mix up her ball flights and pace vanished too. Instead the 26-year-old started trading forehands with Raducanu, whose superior ball-striking was always likely to triumph eventually – and eight consecutive points to end the set put the Brit firmly on her way.

The second set was a much more one-sided affair; Raducanu’s first serve has been a point of marked improvement this summer and, action loosened perhaps by the lead, she lost only three points behind it in her five second-set service holds, while her return game also stepped up a level. Zarazua managed just four unreturned serves all set.

Raducanu even ran down a drop shot, something she had not managed all match, anlging her riposte cross-court for a winner to bring up match point, which she duly converted.

A broad smile split Raducanu’s face as it had 24 hours ago when Harry Kane nodded England into the lead. Neither English athlete had produced their best, but all that matter was they won.