Saturday 30 June 2012

Murray's Late Show

Andy Murray had to play past the witching hour to book his place into the second week of Wimbledon. His third round opponent was much respected Cypriot, Marcos Baghdatis. With centre court being held up by the previous matches, Murray and Baghdatis began their match a little later than build and that brought fears that the match wouldn't be able to finish until Monday.

The magic time was 11:00pm where only a couple of minutes of extra time would be allowed to finish a game. Before they got anywhere near that time, Murray took the first set 7-5 in just under an hour. Baghdatis responded with a 6-3 second victory before Murray made it 2-1 with another 7-5 victory. The question was begged as to whether play should continue with only 20-minutes until 11.

But the fourth set went ahead and Murray went 4-1 ahead with five minutes left. The Scot then broke Baghdatis' serve to make it 5-1 as the clock struck 11. The umpire gave the nod to allow Murray to attempt to serve out the match. Baghdatis didn't really offer much fight and Murray would win the game to love to win the match with the clock saying 11:02.

As expected, Murray will be the only Brit into the second week after Heather Watson crashed out at the third round. Watson took on third seed Agnieszka Radwanska and looked to be a little starstruck, losing the first set 6-0. The Pole continued to assert her authority and took the second 6-2 to ease into a fourth round match against Camila Giorgi.  

History was made at Wimbledon today during Yaroslava Shvedova's and Sara Errani's battle. The Kazakhstani became only the second player to win a golden set. Shvedova beat the tenth seed in the opening  set 6-0, without conceding a single point. Errani tried to restore some pride in the second set but still lost it 6-4, Shvedova will now face a tough task in Serena Williams in the fourth round. Williams beat China's Jie Zheng 6-7 6-2 9-7.

After Nadal's surprise defeat, the other top seeds must have been a little anxious to not follow suite. Novak Djokovic faced Radek Stepanek and lost the opening set 6-4. The Serb then regained his ominous form to take the other three sets 6-2 to book a fourth round match against fellow Serb, Viktor Troicki.

Roger Federer also wasn't immune to a potential shock. He took on France's Julien Benneteau and lost the first set 6-4 before finding himself two sets down, losing 7-3 in the second set tie-break. But Federer regained composure to win the third set 6-2 before finding himself in danger of losing in the fourth. But the world number three held out to take the fourth set 8-6 via the tie-break. That seemed to have broken the Frenchman's fight as Federer would take the final set 6-1 to set up a fourth round tie against Belgium's Xavier Malisse.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga's passage into the fourth round was a lot easier against Slovakia's Lukas Lacko. The Frenchman won 6-4 6-3 6-3 to find himself up against a tougher test in tenth seed Mardy Fish in the next round.

Maria Sharapova is also safely into the fourth round after beating Su-Wei Hsieh. The world number one took the first set 6-1 before taking the second 6-4 to set up a last 16 tie against last year's semi-finalist Sabine Lisicki.

The world number two, Victoria Azarenka, will face former world number one, Ana Ivanovic, in a tasty sounding fourth round tie. Azarenka beat Jana Cepelova 6-3 6-3 with Ivanovic winning against Julia Georges  3-6 6-3 6-4.

Fourth seed, Petra Kvitova, is also into the fourth round and will face the 2010 French Open champion, Francesca Schiavone. Kvitova only dropped one game against Varvara Lepchenko while Schiavone dropped four games in the second set against Klara Zakopalova.

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