The Serb, who is chasing his eighth title at the storied Grand Slam tournament, dominated the first two sets which he won 6-3, 6-1.
In set number three, however, Wawrinka played up significantly and kept pace with Djokovic. Neither of them managed to break the other’s serve and the set thus had to be decided in a tiebreak.
There, Djokovic, who during the season was almost clinical in tiebreaks, showed a slightly more human side and offered a couple of mistakes of a simpler kind. But in the end, the 23-time Grand Slam champion rode out the storm and thus won the match in straight sets with the final scores 6-3, 6-1, 7-6(5).
The victory over Wawrinka means that Djokovic has now won 31 Wimbledon matches in a row. Anyone looking to find his last loss on grass in London has to go all the way back to 2017, when he had to pull out of the quarter-finals against Czech Tomas Berdych due to an elbow injury.
On Sunday, Djokovic plays his next match. There awaits the 18th-ranked Pole Hubert Hurkacz, who earlier on Friday beat Lorenzo Musetti.