LONDON (AP) — Two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz needed to go through more than 4 1/2 hours of back-and-forth shifts against a much-older and much-less-accomplished Fabio Fognini at Centre Court before emerging with a 7-5, 6-7 (5), 7-5, 2-6, 6-1 victory in the first round of Wimbledon on Monday.

The No. 2-seeded Alcaraz had a much tougher time than anyone likely expected before he managed to extend his current winning streak to a career-best 19 matches.

Consider, to begin with, that Alcaraz is 22 and already a five-time Grand Slam champion, including his latest at the French Open three weeks ago.

Consider, too, that Fognini is 38, plans to retire after this season, has never been past the third round at the All England Club in 15 appearances and reached the quarterfinals at any major tournament just once— way back at the 2011 French Open. He also entered Monday ranked 138th and with an 0-6 record in 2025.

Oh, and then there’s this: Only twice has the reigning men’s champion at Wimbledon been beaten in the first round the following year, Lleyton Hewitt in 2003 and Manuel Santana in 1967.

There were times Monday when Alcaraz appeared to be something less than his best, far from the form he displayed during his epic five-set, 5 1/2-hour comeback victory over No. 1 Jannik Sinner for the championship at Roland-Garros.

He double-faulted nine times. He faced a hard-to-believe 21 break points. He made more unforced errors, 62, than winners, 52.

Alcaraz chalked some of that up to nerves.

“Playing the first match at Centre Court, and the first match of every tournament, is never easy,” said Alcaraz, who beat Novak Djokovic in the 2023 and 2024 finals at that arena. “I've been practicing pretty well. I've been playing on grass really well. But Wimbledon is special. It's different.”

Next for Alcaraz will be a match Wednesday against Oliver Tarvet, a 21-year-old British qualifier who plays college tennis at the University of San Diego and is ranked 733rd.

Still, Alcaraz said: “I have to improve in the next round.”

There was a moment Monday where Alcaraz looked toward his coach, 2003 French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero, and shouted something about how Fognini looked as if he could keep playing until he’s 50.

“I don’t know why it’s his last Wimbledon,” Alcaraz said afterward, “because the level he has shown, he can still play three or four more years. Unbelievable.”

Fognini — whose wife, 2015 U.S. Open champion Flavia Pennetta, held one of their children in the stands — is a self-described hot-head and is known for mid-match flareups, including at Wimbledon, where he was fined $3,000 in 2019 for saying during a match that he wished “a bomb would explode at the club” and a then-record $27,500 in 2014 for a series of outbursts during a victory. He was put on a two-year probation by the Grand Slam Board in 2017 after insulting a female chair umpire at the U.S. Open and getting kicked out of that tournament.

That kind of behavior was not displayed Monday. And when Alcaraz pushed a forehand long to cede the fourth set, Fognini nodded toward his guest box, where a member of his entourage stood to snap a photo with a cellphone. Things were picture-perfect for Fognini at that moment.

But at the outset of the fifth — the first time the previous year’s male champ was pushed that far in the first round since Roger Federer in 2010 — Alcaraz recalibrated himself.

When the Spaniard broke to lead 2-0 in the last set with a backhand volley winner, he pointed toward the stands, threw an uppercut and screamed, “Vamos!” In the next game, he saved a pair of break points, before the match was paused for more than 10 minutes because a spectator felt ill amid record-breaking high temperatures for Day 1 of Wimbledon.

When they resumed, Alcaraz continued to impose himself and outplay Fognini the rest of the way.

___

Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich.

More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis