Теннис

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

Igor Andreev receiving treatment during his third round match againstAndy Roddick.

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

Quarterfinal Berths On the Line Monday

On Monday, 16 players will take to the lawns at Wimbledon for a spot in the quarterfinals of the third Grand Slam of the year. Four of those 16 players are previous Grand Slam winners.

Highlighting the action on Monday will be a battle between two Grand Slam winners, World No. 1 Roger Federer and former No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero .

Federer is attempting to win Wimbledon for the third time in a row, and is looking to claim his fifth career Grand Slam title. The Swiss star has won 32 consecutive matches on grass, having not lost on the surface since Wimbledon in 2002.

Ferrero is through to the fourth round at Wimbledon for just the second time in his five appearances at the All England Club. Ferrero spent eight weeks as No. 1 late in 2003, the same year he won the title at Roland Garros and finished as the runner-up at the US Open.

This will be the ninth meeting between the two players. Federer holds a 5-3 edge in the series, and has won the last three straight against the Spaniard. Their last meeting came in Dubai earlier this year where Federer advanced in a third set tie-break.

Awaiting the winner of that match will be either Fernando Gonzalez of Chile or Russian Mikhail Youzhny . Gonzalez won the only previous meeting between the two in four sets earlier this year in the first round of Davis Cup play.

Gonzalez, the bronze medalist at the Athens Olympics, is looking to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal for the third time in his career while Youzhny is hoping to do so for the first time in his career.

The other two quarters on the top half of the draw also feature a pair of intriguing matches. In the first, 2002 Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt takes on Taylor Dent . Hewitt owns a 3-1 edge in the all-time series, although the American did win the last meeting in the series earlier this year in Hewitt's hometown of Adelaide.

Hewitt, who has spent 80 weeks at No. 1, is No. 2 in the INDESIT ATP Ranking. In his career, Dent is 7-16 against Top 10 players, but he's posted a 4-2 mark in 2005, with both loses coming at the hands of Andre Agassi .

Hewitt has reached the final of the last two Grand Slam's he's played, falling to Federer at last year's US Open and to Marat Safin in this year's Australian Open.

Last year's Wimbledon semifinalist Mario Ancic takes on Spanish lefty Feliciano Lopez in the final match from the top half. It will be the first meeting between the two.

Ancic won his first career title earlier this month on the grass of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. In his career, he is 23-9 on grass, including a 9-1 mark this year.

Lopez has posted his best career Grand Slam results, having now reached the fourth round for the third time in four appearances. He's 13-7 all-time on grass, including an 11-3 mark at the All England Club.

On the bottom half of the draw, two more Grand Slam champions and two Slam finalists vie for a spot in the quarterfinals.

The bottom section of the draw features 2004 Wimbledon finalist and 2003 US Open Champion Andy Roddick against 2004 Roland Garros runner-up Guillermo Coria . The American has won all four previous meetings against the Argentine, including the title match of ATP Masters Series Miami last year and two round robin matches at Tennis Masters Cup.

This run is Coria's best at the All England Club. In three previous appearances, he had only once reached the second round. He owns a 9-6 career record on grass.

Roddick owns a 38-7 career record on grass, including three straight titles at Queen's Club. In 2003 he reached the Wimbledon semifinals before playing for the title last year. Both times he fell to Federer.

A semifinalist at Wimbledon the previous two years, Sebastien Grosjean looks to take another step in that direction when he plays Dmitry Tursunov . This is the first meeting between the two.

Tursunov, who has gone deeper into a Slam than ever before, got a break in the third round by only playing four sets after playing five in his first two matches.

Grosjean, the ninth seed, won his 40 th career grass match on Saturday, moving his career record on the surface to 40-17.

David Nalbandian , the 2002 Wimbledon runner-up, brings a 2-0 lifetime record against Richard Gasquet into their match on Monday. Both previous meetings between the two have come on clay.

This is Nalbandian's third Wimbledon, and it is the third time he's reached at least the fourth round. Gasquet is playing Wimbledon for just the second time, having lost in last year's first round.

The final spot in the quarterfinal belongs to either Max Mirnyi or 2002 Australian Open Champion Thomas Johansson .

The 27-year-old Mirnyi is having one his best seasons, as he's already equaled his win total from last season with a 26-15 record in 2005. This year he's reached two finals, equaling his career total, including on grass at Nottingham last week. This is Mirnyi's second appearance in the Wimbledon fourth round.

Johansson is in Wimbledon's fourth round for the third time in his career. The Swede has enjoyed grass court success in the past, having won the title at Halle and Nottingham in 2001.

The quarterfinal matches will take place on Wednesday at the All England Club, with the semifinals coming on Friday.

[Vardan]

[Vardan]

Wimbledon QF Set

Two Russian seeds came back from the brink of defeat Monday at Wimbledon, with both No.8 Nadia Petrova and No.9 Anastasia Myskina saving two match points to reach the quarterfinals.

World No.1 Lindsay Davenport advances to her seventh consecutive Wimbledon quarterfinal, defeating Kim Clijsters, 63 67(4) 63 and will play Svetlana Kuznetsova, who turned 20 on Monday.

France has two quarterfinalists here for the first time in the Open Era, with Mary Pierce and Amelie Mauresmo advancing. Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova are also through and could potentially meet in the semifinals.

[Vardan]

The Championships, Wimbledon

London-GBR

June 20 - July 3, 2005

£10,085,510

Monday, June 27, 2005

Singles - Fourth Round

(12) Mary Pierce (FRA) d. (26) Flavia Pennetta (ITA) 63 61

(3) Amelie Mauresmo (FRA) d. (13) Elena Likhovtseva (RUS) 64 60

(2) Maria Sharapova (RUS) d. (16) Nathalie Dechy (FRA) 64 62

(14) Venus Williams (USA) d. Jill Craybas (USA) 60 62

( Nadia Petrova (RUS) d. Kveta Peschke (CZE) 67(5) 76(7) 63

(9) Anastasia Myskina (RUS) d. (6) Elena Dementieva (RUS) 16 76(9) 75

(1) Lindsay Davenport (USA) d. (15) Kim Clijsters (BEL) 63 67(4) 63

(5) Svetlana Kuznetsova (RUS) d. Magdalena Maleeva (BUL) 64 63

Doubles - Third Round

(2) Black/Huber (ZIM/RSA) d. (15) Loit/Strycova (FRA/CZE) 61 75

( Groenefeld/Navratilova (GER/CZE) d. (10) Asagoe/Srebotnik (JPN/SLO) 63 63

(7) Hantuchova/Sugiyama (SVK/JPN) d. (9) Medina Garrigues/Safina (ESP/RUS) 62 61

(11) Stewart/Stosur (AUS/AUS) d. (6) Husarova/Martinez (SVK/ESP) 76( 67(5) 61

[Vardan]

Davenport Outlasts Clijsters

Monday, June 27, 2005

World No.1 Lindsay Davenport overcame the toughest hurdle so far in her bid to win a second Wimbledon title when she defeated Kim Clijsters 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 in 1 hour 50 minutes on Centre Court. The fourth round victory was a repeat of the one she achieved against the Belgian at the French Open last month, a win which came after a string of six successive Clijsters successes against the tall Californian.

Davenport operated at full throttle to secure the win, her solid serving and deep groundstrokes keeping Clijsters at full stretch for long spells. The pace and accuracy of her tennis overcame the disadvantage of comparative lack of speed compared to the 15th seeded Clijsters, and after dropping serve in the opening game of the match she did not falter again, apart from missing a match point at 5-4 in the second set, until late in the third set.

So keyed up was Davenport for this crucial encounter that she immediately struck back after that opening game setback to break Clijsters. Finding the angles and hitting the deepest areas of the court, Davenport kept Clijsters on the back foot, the Belgian frequently needing to perform her trademark "splits" retrieving shots in a bid to avoid being overwhelmed.

The inevitable second break of serve, putting Davenport 4-3 ahead, came on a Clijsters forehand error. Then, as if to prove that her reputation for lack of mobility was unfounded, the American chased down a drop shot and belted it away for a backhand winner to break serve again and capture the set in 26 minutes.

In what was developing into the best women's match of the tournament so far, Davenport needed to save three break points in the third game of the second set to hold at bay an opponent determined to reverse the flow of the exchanges. But Clijsters almost went out in straight sets when, trailing 5-4 she faced a match point which was averted when Davenport sent a backhand long.

Davenport was entitled to enter the subsequent tie-break feeling confident, since she had won all four previous ones against this opponent, but after leading 2-0 and missing an easy chance to make it 3-0, the top seed was outplayed and Clijsters levelled the match by taking the tie-break seven points to four.

That was to be the high point for the Belgian, however. She was broken in the third game of the final set, and again in the seventh to trail 5-2. There were faint hopes of a recovery when Davenport was broken as she served for the match, but Kim's afternoon ended miserably in the next game when she delivered three double-faults, the last of them at match point.

Written by Ronald Atkin