Spanish second seed Rafa Nadal overcame a third-set wobble and a brief rain delay to beat Lithuania's Ricardas Berankis 6-4 6-4 4-6 6-3 and stay on course for a third Wimbledon title.
Nadal's 307th grand slam match win, has him one ahead of Martina Navratilova and fourth on the all-time list, but it will not linger long in his memory.
An off-key Nadal never looked in serious danger of having his bid for the calendar-year slam wrecked by the world number 106, but he knows he will have to play much better in the rounds ahead to claim his third Wimbledon title.
The statistics rather told the tale with Nadal unusually making more unforced errors than winners - 39-35.
Lithuanian Berankis struck the ball crisply and matched Nadal for long periods but gifted away a scrappy first set when he chose the worst possible time to hand over his serve with a bunch of poor errors, when trailing 5-4.
Vintage @RafaelNadal 🍷
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) June 30, 2022
Just when you think you've got him on the ropes...#Wimbledon | #CentreCourt100 pic.twitter.com/eMX2W2eYox
The Centre Court crowd probably expected Nadal to move through the gears then but the usual fizz was missing from his groundstrokes and he had to recover a break of serve in the second set as he grafted towards victory.
Berankis broke serve again early in the third set with a sweetly-struck backhand and had a point for a double break and a 4-1 lead. Nadal averted that but could find no inspiration to recover the break of serve and was forced to do some overtime as an increasingly confident Berankis held serve to love at 5-4.
It was the second time in two matches that Nadal had lost the third set having won the opening two, but he responded by winning 12 of the first 13 points of the fourth for a 3-0 lead only to be stopped in his tracks when a cloudburst forced a delay as the roof was rolled across the court.
When play resumed nearly an hour later, 106th ranked Berankis held serve three times and played a full part in some eye-catching baseline exchanges but Nadal was a man in a hurry and polished off the match with his 13th ace.
The bottom half of the draw looks inviting for Nadal, with so many top seeds already removed, but Italian 27th seed Lorenzo Sonego will provide a test of his form and fitness on Saturday.
Fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas romped into the third round at Wimbledon with an accomplished 6-2 6-3 7-5 victory over Australian Jordan Thompson under the new roof on Court One.
The 23-year-old Greek displayed none of the jitters that lost him a set against qualifier Alexander Ritschard in the first round on Tuesday, breaking Thompson's serve twice in each of the first two sets and winning the match when the Australian put a forehand long after a tight rally.
Thompson, 28, and ranked 76 in the world has never beaten a top-10 player at a Grand Slam tournament and was upset when the umpire overruled a line call, earning his opponent a break point in the seventh game of the second set.
He thumped a ball in frustration when Tsitsipas took the set while the Greek, who next meets another Australian - temperamental showman Nick Kyrgios - kept his cool on the other side of the net.
Kyrgios gave a metaphorical two fingers to his critics by letting his tennis do the talking and racing into the third round meeting with Tsitsipas.
The Australian was widely condemned for his behaviour during his first-round win over Britain's Paul Jubb.
Kyrgios had admitted spitting in the direction of a fan who was "disrespecting" him, and called a line judge a "snitch", in a testy five-set win, the latest in a string of on-court misdemeanours in a controversial career.
But on Thursday, he rolled over Serbian 26th seed and Queen's Club finalist Filip Krajinovic 6-2 6-3 6-1.
"I guess just from a personal performance standpoint, my performance in my first round was just not where I wanted to be," said Kyrgios, 27.
"Especially with the way I've been playing and the way I've been training, the hard work I've been doing. I was pretty disappointed in my performance in the first round.
"Then obviously the media's disrespect and just everything, it was just kind of a reminder to put you all back in your place from the performance today.
"He made finals at Queen's, top 30 in the world, seeded. It's a gentle reminder.
"Today from the get-go, I just felt really good. From the back of the court I felt like I really returned well. I was just very just locked in from the get-go today.
"I just wanted to, I don't know, just prove to people that, like, I'm really good. I feel like I just don't have the respect sometimes, you know?
"There was just nothing the media possibly could tell me I did wrong today. I just know that you can't possibly ask me anything and stir anything up.
"And I love it because then you can't write anything. What are you going to say? Nothing today. Dumbfounded all of you."
✅ Best Grand Slam result
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) June 30, 2022
✅ Into the third round
Wild card @Liambroady seals a stunning five-set victory against Diego Schwartzman#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/xgykb1plOA
Liam Broady made the third round of a slam for the first time with a stunning comeback win to beat 12th seed Diego Schwartzman in five sets.
The duo had met at the same stage at the All England Club last year and the Argentinian proved too strong, which looked to be the case again when he reeled off 11 games in a row to take control of the round two tie.
Broady dug deep and after he edged a fourth set tie-breaker, the world 132 had the momentum and clinched a career-best result 6-2 4-6 0-6 7-6 (8-6) 6-1 in three hours and 47 minutes.
Brandon Nakashima extended the American charge at this year's Wimbledon when he ousted last year's semi-finalist Denis Shapovalov with a 6-2 4-6 6-1 7-6 (8-6) victory in the second round on Thursday.
Nakashima became the seventh player from the United States to book a spot in the third round of the grasscourt Grand Slam this year with an eighth spot guaranteed as Maxime Cressy and Jack Sock clash in an all-American battle.
Top-ranked American Taylor Fritz, John Isner, Jenson Brooksby, Tommy Paul, Steve Johnson and Frances Tiafoe are the others to have reached that stage -- the most at a Grand Slam since the 1996 US Open and the most at Wimbledon in 27 years.
The 20-year-old Nakashima, ranked 56th in the world, hit 22 winners while limiting his unforced errors to 14 to defeat Canadian left-hander Shapovalov.
