Federer wins the first set against Melzer 6-3 without much trouble. Venus is now back on serve against Groth, it’s 5-5 in the second. And in the Belgian championship, Henin twice broke Clijsters’ serve on the way to winning the first set 6-2.
Federer looks really good today.
That looks like a buttkicking. Federer wins 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 over a top-20 player in less than 90 minutes. Melzer really couldn’t touch Federer’s serve - he got a break in the first set, but never got another chance, and Federer won very high percentages of his service points. His serving percentage wasn’t great, but he did do very well at converting break points (6/10) which he will need to keep doing. He’s likely to get Berdych in the quarterfinals.
Clijsters came back to beat Henin 6-3 in the third.
Serena just finished off Sharapova in a close match. Wozniacki is out, and she lost badly. She was beaten by Kvitova, the woman who beat Safina in the U.S. Open last year. On paper that’s the biggest upset of the tournament so far. Djokovic is up two sets on Hewitt. He’s done a good job of picking his spots: he won both sets by converting a single break point. Soderling is up a set on Ferrer, and I think this is worth noting because I hadn’t heard it before the weekend: Soderling has not had his serve broken once in his first three matches. He just got a break to go up 3-1 in the second against Ferrer.
So, NBC is not showing Andy Roddick, who is in a close match right now.
???
I see that Jennifer Capriati is recovering from an accidental overdose.
I hope it was really accidental.
Oh, and Andy Roddick just went down 2 sets to one to Lu.
Rendy Lu.
Roddick actually lost set three in a tiebreak, so he’s going to need to take the next two to hold off Lu. Soderling has dropped serve a few times but he leads Ferrer two sets to one, with Ferrer up a break in the fourth and a few games away from leveling the match. Murray doesn’t seem to be having much trouble with Sam Querrey.
I agree with the commentators about Querrey. Maybe he just can’t handle best of 5 matches physically.
Unless Roddick comes up with something soon, it looks like the match is going to be decided by a 5th set battle. I’m predicting 16-14.
I sure wish I could run as well as Nadal does with a knee injury!
Soderling squeaked by Ferrer at 7-5 in the fifth. I know Ferrer is in the top 10 but I didn’t think that match was going to be so close. Roddick and Lu are in the fifth set. It’s 8-7, so I was going to say they’re deep in the fifth set, but that doesn’t look as deep as it used to. Roddick has held serve three times to stay in the match. Lu is two points from the match right now… Wow, he did it! Talk about a total stunner! Lu beats Roddick 4-6, 7-6, 7-6, 6-7, 9-7!
Mathieu doesn’t seem to be giving Nadal much of a fight. Nadal is up two sets. Assuming Nadal keeps cruising, here are the quarterfinal matchups for Wednesday.
Gentlemen
Federer (1) vs. Berdych (12)
Djokovic (3) vs. Lu
Tsonga (10) vs. Murray (4)
Soderling (6) vs. Nadal (2)
Ladies
Serena (1) vs. Li Na (9)
Kvitova vs. Kanepi
Clijsters (8) vs. Zvonareva (21)
Pironkova vs. Venus (2)
Pretty big contrast here: six of the male quarterfinalists have been to the finals of at least one Grand Slam event. Three of them have won a major, and there’s one nonseed left. On the women’s side there are three unseeded women in the last eight. Kanepi had to go through qualifying to get into the tournament. Pironkova has never even made the third round at a major before, and Kvitova had never made a quarterfinal. Kanepi was in the quarters in Paris in 2008. So Serena, Venus and Clijsters have a huge edge in experience over the field. Zvonareva hasn’t been in a major final but she’s made a few semis and quarters, and was in the final of the year-end championships one time. Li has given Serena a few tough matches. She’s beaten her once and she forced Serena into two tiebreaks in Australia. That could be a tough one, but you have to like Serena’s chances against Li and then an unseeded opponent. A Serena-Clijsters rematch in the finals would be great.
Roddick is out. 
Rendy Lu is the first Asian man to reach the quarters of a major in 15 years.
Wow.
I was off by a few games. What a performance by Lu. Hope he can keep it up against Djokovic.
Huh. A quick check of Paradorn Srichaphan says his best result was the fourth round. I’d have thought he’d have gotten a semi somewhere.
Wow is right. This guy really came from nowhere. He’s ranked 82, hadn’t won a match at a major since Australia in 2009… hadn’t won a watch at Wimbledon since 2004 … almost 27, with a career record well under .500… I don’t know what he’s doing differently now, but it’s working, at least on grass. I see he did win a challenger late last year and another in April, so maybe he’s figured something out recently or gotten healthy. I don’t know. Not to rain on his parade now but considering some of the problems Djokovic has had lately in dealing with pressure, he must be thanking his lucky stars that he’s getting a guy ranked in the 80s in his next match instead of having to face Roddick on grass.
Can I get bonus points for guessing who the last Asian man to make a major quarterfinal was? It’s
Shuzo Matsuoka.
Although if it wasn’t him I would have only had one or two other guesses.
Well, if you include doubles, Leander Paes won the mixed doubles title in Oz and was the mens’ doubles runner-up in France.
I meant singles.
Contrary to what I posted earlier, the women’s quarterfinals are tomorrow. They’ll start at 1 pm local time (8 eastern) with Clijsters-Zvonareva and Venus-Pironkova. In passing I note that my favorite doubles team, and the only one I really follow, lost today. Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi lost in the third round. But The Beast is still alive in the mixed doubles, with Kleybanova.
Lu’s post-game interview was very touching. His father died recently and he wished that he’d been alive to see him beat Roddick.
Awww…