Chinese star Li Na crashed out of Wimbledon Friday in another twist to her love-hate relationship with the tournament while Novak Djokovic made the last-16 but only after surviving a horror fall. Second seed Li lost 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (7/5) in the third round to Barbora Zahlavova Strycova of the Czech Republic with the defeat coming hot on the heels of her shock first round exit at the French Open.
In eight appearances at Wimbledon, the 32-year-old Li has still never got beyond the quarter-finals. The match ended in bizarre circumstances with Li, facing match point, successfully challenging a forehand which had been called long. Top seed Djokovic survived a shoulder injury scare to reach the fourth round for the eighth time with a 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 win over Gilles Simon, his seventh successive victory over the Frenchman. Tsonga made the last 16 by beating Jimmy Wang of Taiwan, 6-2, 6-2, 7-5 Curtains for Hewitt, Venus Five-time women's champion Venus Williams and 2002 men's winner Lleyton Hewitt saw their 2014 Wimbledon campaigns end.
Hewitt played a record 42nd five-set Grand Slam match but still went down in a delayed second round tie, losing to 2013 semi-finalist Jerzy Janowicz of Poland, 7-5, 6-4, 6-7 (7/9), 4-6, 6-3. Janowicz faces Spanish 23rd seed Tommy Robredo in the third round. Hewitt, 33, was contesting his 61st Grand Slam but insisted he was not yet thinking of retirement.
In her 17th Wimbledon and 63rd Grand Slam, Williams went down in the third round to 2011 champion Petra Kvitova, the sixth seeded Czech, 5-7, 7-6 (7/2), 7-5 who next plays Peng Shuai of China. Bulgarian 11th seed Grigor Dimitrov won a marathon battle with Alexandr Dolgopolov of the Ukraine, 6-7 (3/7), 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 to make the last 16 for the first time.
He will face unseeded Argentine Leonardo Mayer who beat Russian qualifier Andrey Kuznetsov 6-4, 7-6 (7/1), 6-3. Kevin Anderson, the 20th seed, defeated explosive Italian 16th seed Fabio Fognini 4-6, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, 6-1 to become the first South African man to reach the Wimbledon fourth round for 14 years. The 28-year-old will play defending champion Andy Murray or Spanish 27th seed Roberto Bautista Agut for a place in the quarter-finals.
Former women's world number one Wozniacki reached the last 16 for the fourth time with a 6-3, 6-0 win over Croatian 16-year-old Ana Konjuh, the world number 189. Belinda Bencic, the 17-year-old Swiss won her delayed second round tie, 6-4, 7-5 against America's Victoria Duval and next faces third-seeded Simona Halep who clinched a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 win over Ukrainian qualifier Lesia Tsurenko. French Open runner-up Halep will be playing in the third round for the first time.
Comments
Comments are closed.