Rafael Nadal crushed Andy Murray in the Wimbledon quarter-finals

Second seed Rafael Nadal crushed British hope Andy Murray in the Wimbledon quarter-finals on Wednesday, racing to a 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 victory.

The Spaniard was simply unstoppable as he picked apart the Scot in front of a Centre Court crowd who had been hoping for a repetition of Murray's epic fourth round win over Richard Gasquet.

From the moment Nadal, runner-up here for the last two years, broke serve in the eighth game the outcome was inevitable and Murray sank under a barrage of baseline thunderbolts.

French Open champion Nadal broke serve twice in the second set and pounced again at 3-3 in the third. Murray had battled back from two sets and a break down against Gasquet but Nadal was relentless as he stormed into the semi-final against either Rainer Schuettler or Arnaud Clement.

A must See Match -Roger Federer V/s Lleyton Hewitt,

Hewitt, who won Wimbledon in 2002 before Federer's five-year domination began, has already gone further than his 20th seeding spot this year as he gallantly plays the lone ranger for Australian men's tennis.

"This is what you play for. There's no doubt about it," the 27-year-old told reporters when looking ahead to his 21st professional meeting with a player he first locked horns with when they were juniors.

"Especially in my situation, you know, these are the matches I enjoy. It's good to get out there and play on Centre Court, play against the best player in the world."

Hewitt, the dominant force in men's tennis when he won the 2001 US Open and Wimbledon a year later, has not been to a Grand Slam quarter-final for two years yet is still feared as one of the toughest competitors on the circuit.

Federer himself is a big admirer of Hewitt, the only other man in the draw to have won Wimbledon.

"It's always a challenge playing Lleyton. He's a great player, a guy I really enjoy watching as well. He's a great competitor," the Swiss, who has looked serene so far as he chases a sixth consecutive Wimbledon title, said.

"We go back a long time. We played when we were 15 for the first time against each other. I saved match point and won in the end. So we go way back."

"I think it's an intriguing match for both of us. It's been a while, but at the same time he knows what it takes to win Slams. I think Lleyton Hewitt definitely believes very strongly in his chances."

Whatever Federer says publicly, it would be a huge shock to rival anything seen so far at this topsy turvy championships if Hewitt hustled the champion out on Monday.

Federer can do everything Hewitt does and plenty more besides. While the Swiss can call upon tennis from another galaxy at times, Hewitt's no-frills game is as rugged as the great Australian outback.

What he does have in abundance, however, is bags of fight and a few words of wisdom from Federer's former coach Tony Roche who he has now teamed up with.

"Rochey's obviously going to know a lot. There's no doubt about that. But you've still got to go out there and execute it as well and not play into Roger's hands too much.

"Against a guy like Roger, you really have to take half chances when you get them, because you're not going to get many."

India Crushed Out of Wimbledon-2008

The Indian challenge in Wimbledon mixed doubles event ended with crushing second-round defeats for the pairings of Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza and Leander Paes and Rennae Stubbs on Saturday.

For Bhupathi, the defeat also rounded off a disappointing Wimbledon campaign. Seeded 11th Bhupathi, who has already crashed out of men's doubles in the first round, and Sania were sent packing by the unseeded Russian team of Igor Andreev

Sports stars converge on Centre Court

Sachin Tendulkar was the only Indian representative at Wimbledon on Saturday when the Royal Box courted some of the sporting legends.

It has become a tradition that middle Saturday becomes "Sporting Saturday" and the tournament plays host to a mix of British sporting winners and some of Wimbledon's own famous alumni.

Andy Roddick suffered his worst ever defeat at Wimbledon

Andy Roddick suffered his worst ever defeat at Wimbledon, bounced out of the second round 6-7, 7-5, 6-4, 7-6 by Janko Tipsarevic, the world No. 40, from Serbia.

Never before had Roddick lost so early at The All England Club. Twice a finalist here and a quarter-finalist last year, he regards the lawns of SW19 as his second home and his best chance of winning a Grand Slam title. Those ambitions will have to wait another year.

Received wisdom has it that Roddick is beatable, even on the fastest of surfaces, which give his thumping serve yet more fizz. For his opponents, getting his serve back is key. If you can get the ball in play, anything is possible. That sounds a good deal easier than it actually is but the theory has been put into practice many times.

Tim Henman used to take one look at Roddick and smile. Britain's former national treasure had an unerring knack of knowing where the big American was going to plant the ball, get his racket there first and then stand back and watch Roddick implode. It worked a treat, time after time.

Roddick's confidence was not exactly at an all-time high as he settled into Wimbledon. A shoulder injury had limited his clay court season and then, when he was finally fit to return to work, Rafael Nadal had limited his run at Queen's Club to no more than a semi-final place – and Queen's is a tournament Roddick has won four times in the past five years.

Taking on Tipsarevic, he was soon a bundle of jangling nerves. Everything was getting under his skin – and chief among his list of complaints was that muscular bloke from Serbia. A bit like chewing gum stuck to the sole of his shoe, Roddick could not shift Tipsarevic and the more he tried, the messier the whole situation became.

Carlos Ramos, the umpire, got a piece of Roddick's mind on more than one occasion. Firstly it was Ramos's failure to call a let when Roddick's serve clipped the net cord and landed on the service line (Roddick had to challenge using Hawk-Eye and was proved right, a point he made quite clear to Ramos). Then there was Tipsarevic's habit of grunting after he had hit the ball, leaving Roddick unsure whether to return the ball or the grunt. Then there was his own inability to deal with the problem before him.

Providing a running commentary on his own strengths and weaknesses, Roddick appeared to be holding a tennis class for beginners: "Andy, don't hit second service returns into the net!" "Just do what you are supposed to do!"

By the time he missed the chance to break in the fourth set after 2 ¾ hours of play, his language had become considerably more industrial and his instructions to himself unrepeatable.

Tipsarevic has, as Londoners would put it, "previous" in tormenting top seeds on show courts. He had kept Roger Federer busy for five gruelling sets in the third round of the Australian Open in January, the Swiss only escaping 10-8 in the fifth.

He does everything well, but nothing to excess. His serve is solid (Roddick had eight break points but could not convert a single one), he is ready, willing and able to attack the net, he is smart and he moves like greased lightning. Oh, and he's got decent touch, too. And for all that Roddick cracked down 27 aces, the Serb managed to get the ball back more often than not.

For 3 hours 6 minutes, Tipsarevic kept pestering, pressing and pushing Roddick. He never let up and he never let his level drop, not even for a moment. Roddick just could not get any leverage on the Serb's serve and had five opportunities whisked from his grasp in the first set – he just squeaked through in the tie-break – and did not get another break point to play with until the fourth set. When those evaporated, the game was up. Always playing catch up in the tie-break, he was on his way home.

Venus shoots down British hopes

For more than an hour Anne Keothavong played beyond her limits and expectations against defending champion Venus Williams before reality dawned and Williams reached the third round 7-5, 6-2 to end British interest in the women's singles.

The match time alone, 104 minutes, was one indication of how hard Keothavong had fought to keep her cause alive. But after a 69-minute first set, Williams needed just half that time to win the second and shake off the challenge of the 92nd ranked player in the world.

Keothavong, along with all the British players, carries the extra burden of having to raise their playing levels at The Championships and from the start she showed she was capable of doing that.

The critical passage of the match proved to be the first five games. Keothavong was in instant trouble when she fell 2-0 behind but her reaction to the early setback was dramatic.

She took the Williams serve in the third game when a second double fault at deuce gave her chance to clinch the break. The 24-year-old then held serve in a seven-deuce game, saving four break points, to draw level.

In the next game Williams showed some fighting qualities of her own, saving an incredible eight break points before finally holding serve.

But despite the closeness of the score, it was Williams who was setting the pace, mainly losing points through her own unforced errors. Hitting winners for Keothavong was proving more demanding against a player with greater pace and variety of shot.

Keothavong held on until the 12th game when at 6-5 down two backhand errors gifted Williams the first set after 69 minutes.

The four-time champion, seventh seed to retain her title, played with growing confidence in the second set, taking the Keothavong serve in the fourth game and again in the eighth. A double fault in that game by Keothavong gave Williams match point and the contest ended with a forehand error by the British girl.

Williams will meet Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, who beat India's Sania Mirza 9-7 in the third set, in the next round.

As for Keothavong, this has been her eighth consecutive appearance at Wimbledon and only the second time she has made it to the second round. The 24-year-old is the first British woman for nine years to have got into the tournament on merit and on the evidence of this performance she will believe there is better to come.

Wimbeldon 2008 sees Miss Sharapova defeated by a 154 ranked Kudryavtseva

Only four days played at the 2008 Championships and there have been two huge upsets. Following Wednesday's exit of Novak Djokovic, the men's third seed, there was an equally dramatic defeat for the women's third seed and 2004 champion, Maria Sharapova, who was beaten 6-2, 6-4 by Alla Kudryavtseva, a 20-year-old ranked 154 in the world.

While Djokovic's departure could be classed as explosive, Sharapova's went out with a whimper. Although the victory was celebrated jubilantly by Kudryavtseva, it was her higher ranked compatriot who engineered her own downfall.

Sharapova committed eight double faults, three of them in one game in the first set, served poorly throughout and never managed to get her forehand working effectively. Meanwhile, all Kudryavtseva had to do was play steadily, throw in the occasional inspired shot, and she was home and dry for the biggest win of her career.

The tougher things got for Sharapova, the louder the notorious shriek accompanying her shots grew. But tennis matches are not won by shrieks, rather by solid play and in this respect Sharapova came up short.

The third seed, who was widely expected to enjoy an undemanding afternoon, was never at the races. A break down early on, she went on to lose the first set in 32 minutes.

No need for the alarm bells yet, surely. The 2004 champion has fought back from such situations before. But she remains clearly handicapped by problems with her shoulder, which reduce her serving speed to a near-laughable level at times. Add to that a wonky forehand and the potential for disaster is big.

The first real alarm bells rang when Kudryavtseva, wallopping away and enjoying the odd spot of good fortune in the way of bad bounces, broke for a 4-2 second-set lead with a scorching cross-court forehand.

Defiantly, Sharapova broke right back and then levelled at 4-4 in the shakiest game imaginable. Down 15-40, she appeared to have dropped her serve, only to be saved by a Hawk-Eye ruling that a ball called out against her was in fact just in. Service was held in rousing style with an ace, but by now saving the match was looking a tough proposition.

Kudryavtseva held serve easily for 5-4 and, serving to stay in the tournament, Sharapova let slip a 40-15 lead to lose four points on the trot. One of these was a bad bounce, one a double fault and the death blow was applied with a forehand from the Kudryavtseva that clipped the baseline.

Next up for Kudryavtseva is China’s Shuai Peng in the third round.

Serena Overpowers Urszuala Radwanska to enter in the third Round

Twice former champion Serena Williams produced an erratic performance but proved too strong for Polish teenager Urszula Radwanska whom she dispatched 6-4, 6-4 in the second round at Wimbledon on Wednesday.

The American sixth seed, seeking her first singles title here since 2003, grimaced and frowned her way through, looking far from comfortable on Court Two as she battled her own demons in an error-strewn display that mirrored her opening round win.

Williams, with all her grasscourt experience, found neither rhythm on serve nor her range from the baseline but she still had too much firepower for the 17-year-old wildcard and younger sister of the more renowned Agnieska.

Williams raced into a 4-1 lead but made hard work of claiming the first set. Radwanska was in no mood to throw in the towel in the second, clawing back to 2-2 from a break down before Williams made the decisive second break.

Svetlana Kuznetsova strolled into the third round of Wimbledon

Fourth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova strolled into the third round of Wimbledon on Wednesday, defeating Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko 6-2, 6-3.

The 22-year-old Russian, who came from a set behind to sneak past French qualifier Mathilde Johansson in round one, enjoyed an easier afternoon spending just over an hour on Centre Court.

Bondarenko, the world number 47 and a junior winner here four years ago, rallied briefly in the second set but was unable to recover from falling two breaks behind in each set.

Former US Open champion Kuznetsova could face Bondarenko's older sister Alona in the next round.

Federer Storms into the 3rd Round

Centre Court king Roger Federer put on a rocking Wimbledon show for pop music queen Gwen Stefani on Wednesday as the five-time champion moved into the third round.

Federer brushed aside Sweden's Robin Soderling 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (7/3) to rack up his 61st successive win on grass and a clash with either France's Marc Gicquel or Serbian lucky loser Ilia Bozoljac for a place in the last 16.

The top seed took just two hours to wrap up victory to keep him confidently on the road towards a record sixth successive title.

That path was considerably eased earlier Wednesday when third seed Novak Djokovic, who had been scheduled to meet Federer in the semi-finals, was sensationally knocked out by Marat Safin.

Federer's performance won enthusiastic applause from the watching Stefani and rock-star husband Gavin Rossdale, the lead singer of British grunge-rockers Bush, watching from the players' box. Federer had joined the couple and their son for a trip to London Zoo this week.

"I'm very happy with the win," he said. "The conditions were difficult, the sun was low so it was hard to see the ball in the last few points. So I was pleased to get through without playing a fourth set."

Federer cruised through the first two sets against Soderling who he had beaten in all of their six previous matches.

He dropped serve for the first time on grass this year in the sixth game of the third set before saving a set point in the ninth game.

Soderling's chance was gone and the world number one confidently cruised through the tiebreaker.

Federer begins his campaign in style

It might be wiser — and far healthier for both your bank account and your reputation for lawn tennis punditry — if you were to bet on a rain-free Wimbledon this year than on a certain classy Swiss gentleman — a man who has guarded the men’s singles silverware in his possession with the same sort of zeal that the legendary bankers in his country are known to display with regard to protecting their customers’ money as well as identity — parting with the Challenge Cup in a hurry.

For, on a gorgeous opening day of the 122nd championships on the lawns of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, on Monday, any signs of vulnerability in Roger Federer’s game might have been spotted only by someone who chooses to function in the Harry Potter world rather than in the real one.

The great man’s 60th straight victory on grass, and the first in his quest for a record sixth Wimbledon title in a row, came against the old Slovakian warhorse — and Federer’s good friend and practice partner from his early days in the game — Dominik Hrbaty and the 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 success required the champion’s presence on the centre court for a mere 79 minutes.

At no time in the past five years has the Swiss maestro had to fend off so many questions concerning his form and championship mettle as he has had to in recent months.

And, all this after making the semifinals of the Australian Open and then his third straight final at the French Open.

That the man who is riding one of the most astonishing winning streaks in sport — unbeaten in six years on grass — should be thought vulnerable on his favourite surface is at once an indication of how quickly things can change in sport and how easily people can forget the past.

“Bradman fails,” read a heading in an English newspaper many decades ago, a day after the greatest batsman to have walked the face of the earth made a half-century in a first class match. Such are the yardsticks by which ultimate greatness is measured. On the one hand, this might appear at once cruel and ridiculous; on the other, it is nothing but an acknowledgement of the fact that failure is measured differently in the case of a handful of men and women who are known for stratospheric levels of achievement.

As Federer himself pointed out in Melbourne last January, he — as did the Don and a few other athletes — had “created a monster.”

It is a dinosaur with a reputation for invincibility everywhere but on clay. And it is this piece of unsustainable myth that has been his nemesis during a half-season when everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the World champion.

“I haven’t been reading and I haven’t been listening to what has been said. So, of course, I haven’t been affected either,” said the top seed who did not face a single breakpoint on serve against Hrbaty.

More than a week ago, Federer won the Halle tournament without dropping serve and, on Monday, although Hrbaty improved after a tremulous start, the Slovakian just couldn’t make any sort of impression .

Federer admitted to being a touch nervous “two minutes before we went in” but he reeled off 12 points in a row for a 3-0 lead in five minutes.

The toothy Slovakian recovered but Federer did as he pleased. For, even the marvels of modern technology up in the skies don’t switch to auto pilot quite as safely and surely as does the Swiss master on a grass court.

About the only time parity was achieved was when the 30-year-old Slovakian, who underwent surgery for removal of a bone spur late last year and made it to the main draw here only on the strength of his protected ranking of 70, surprised his superstar friend by sitting next to him during a changeover.

“He asked if he could sit next to me. I said, ‘sure, no problem.’ We go way back,” said Federer. “He said it could be his last Wimbledon and so it was a bit emotional.”

Djokovic moves up
Later in the day, Federer’s potential semifinal opponent, Novak Djokovic, beat the German left hander Michael Berrer 7-5, 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 to get the job done well ahead of the sport’s perennial marathon man, Lleyton Hewitt. The Aussie, the last man to get his hands on the men’s singles trophy before the remarkable Federer era began, displayed typical in-the-trenches resolve to fight his way through 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-3, 6-7(1), 6-2 against Robin Haase of the Netherlands.