Angelique Kerber’s recent woes continued as she lost 4-6 6-4 6-4 to Garbine Muguruza to exit Wimbledon. In the men’s draw, Rafael Nadal’s tournament also ended after a dramatic five set, five hour loss to Gilles Muller.Kerber started the match well against the Spaniard, whom she beat on the way to the 2015 final in London. In a high-class first set that some felt made a mockery of the match’s placement on court two, Kerber eventually got the upperhand.
The 29-year-old was starting to look a little more like the woman that won the Australian and US Opens last year, rather than the one that tamely surrended in the first round in the French Open this year.
Kerber’s improvement continued at the start of the second set, but she missed a few chances to break and Muguruza spied an opportunity she was ruthless enough to take.
As the third set took the match well past the two hour mark, both players showed signs of nerves, with four breaks of serve in the first six games, swinging the pendulum this way and that.
Perhaps the key moment of a titanic battle came in the seventh game when Muguruza held on to her serve after an intense battle that involved a number of deuce points.
Despite saving two match points at 4-5, Kerber couldn’t cling on to her serve moments later. The loss means that the German will lose her status as number one whatever happens in the rest of the tournament. Muguruza will next face Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova after the seventh seed beat Agnieszka Radwanska 6-2 6-4 in their last-16 clash.
Elsewhere in the women’s draw, there were wins for Venus Williams and French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko. The pair will face each other in the next round. Johanna Konta became the first British woman in the Wimbledon quarterfinals in 33 years with a 7-6, 4-6, 6-4 win over Caroline Garcia. Her reward is a clash with the second seeded Simona Halep.
The 24th seeded Coco Vandeweghe upset the fifth seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, 7-6(7), 6-4.
The American will take on Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia
Nadal edged out in epic, Fed beats Baby Fed
On the men’s side… once dubbed ‘Baby Fed’ because of his similarly smooth backhand, 26-year-old Bulgarian, Grigor Dimitrov, was unable to keep up with the Swiss master. The third seeded Roger Federer dispatched Dimitrov 6-4, 6-2, 6-4.
In his quest for a record eighth title on London’s grass courts, the 35-year-old will face Canadian Milos Raonic in Wednesday’s quarter-final match. The runner-up in 2016, the sixth seed Raonic outlasted his German counterpart Alexander Zverev, 4-6, 7-5, 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.
The number one seed, Britain’s Andy Murray, struggled in the first set to get past France’s unseeded Benoit Paire, but advanced unhindered through the next two sets, winning, 7-6(1), 6-4, 6-4. He’ll face American Sam Querrey, who outlasted South African Kevin Anderson 5-7, 7-6(5), 6-3, 6-7(11), 6-3.
Tomas Berdych, the 11th-seeded Czech, topped eighth seeded Dominic Thiem from Austria, 6-3, 6-7(1), 6-3, 3-6, 6-3. He’ll face the winner of the Novak Djokovic – Adrian Mannarino match.
And in epic match that lasted nearly five hours 16th-seed Gilles Muller of Luxembourg outlasted the fourth seeded Rafael Nadal. Muller raced to a two-set lead before the Spaniard came roaring back. But Muller hung tough and, in a titanic battle for match point, prevailed: 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6(15).
Muller will face the seventh seeded Marin Cilic of Croatia.
The marathon match forced the postponement of Novak Djokovic’s fourth round match against Adrian Mannarino. the match is now slated for 1200pm (1100 GMT/UTC) on Tuesday.
