Nick Kyrgios warned the Briton he wanted to avoid in the men’s draw was Andy Murray but Murray’s fellow Brit Paul Jubb nearly proved Kyrgios’ undoing in a tight opening-round match.
Jubb was handed perhaps the toughest first round of all the home players in the men’s and women’s singles in being drawn against an in-form Kyrgios.
And the 22-year-old briefly hinted a big upset on day two of Wimbledon as he took the opening set during which Kyrgios had a tetchy exchange with a line judge.
Jubb somehow managed to keep himself in a topsy-turvy encounter on Court Three, earning two break points with Kyrgios serving for the match at 5-3 in the deciding set.
A 29th ace from the Australian erased the threat but Jubb won himself another break point, which he converted with a deft drop shot.
In game 11, he had break point again but couldn’t convert it, Kyrgios held and served out the match 6-3, 1-6, 5-7, 7-6, 6-3.
Afterwards, Kyrgios said: “He played exceptional tennis today. He’s going to be a good player for sure. I thought I was going to down there and that would have been a big, big loss.”
Ryan Peniston may have had to wait until the age of 26 to make his Grand Slam debut but impressed in beating Henri Laaksonen 6-4 6-3 6-2 to book his place in the second round.
In the process he pocketed at least £78,000, more than half of what he has earned in prize money for the duration of his career.
Peniston was the breakout star of the traditional Wimbledon warm-up event at Queen's as the last Briton standing in the draw.
And he backed that up against Laaksonen, who hit 44 unforced errors to Peniston’s 18.
The Briton had endured an 18-month battle with cancer as a young child and has proved something of a late bloomer in the men’s game this season.
He began Wimbledon already ranked at a career-high 147 and looks set to rise higher yet immaterial of how he fares in the second round.
In all, he took six of 13 break points to edge out all three sets against his Swiss opponent.
He was joined in the second round by Jack Draper, who was drawn against Novak Djokovic a last year’s Wimbledon and picked up his first main draw win, a 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 victory against Zizou Bergs.
But No28 seed Dan Evans was never really in contention in his opening match as he lost out 6-, 6-4, 6-3 to Australian Jason Kubler.
Meanwhile, Heather Watson fought back to edge out Tamara Korpatsch 6-7, 7-5, 6-2 but Katie Swan was unable to maintain the momentum of her strong start against Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk.
Kostyuk, whose father is still in their home city of Kyiv amid the ongoing Russian invasion, came off court a 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 winner.
