Canadian 20-year-old Eugenie Bouchard succeeded where Serena Williams failed as she beat Alize Cornet to reach the quarter-finals on another rain-hit day at Wimbledon yesterday.
Frenchwoman Cornet caused a sensation on Saturday by removing five-times champion and pre-tournament favourite Williams, but the fresh-faced Bouchard proved to be made of sterner stuff as she edged to a 7-6(5) 7-5 win.
“That’s cool. I didn’t know that,” Bouchard said of becoming the first Canadian to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals.
“Another little historic thing for Canada.”
The match was interrupted after five games to allow the Centre Court roof to close when more rain hit the championships after Saturday’s lengthy disruption.
The second Monday is traditionally a feast of top names, with the last 16 in both men’s and women’s singles being played, but organisers were playing catch-up this year with several third-round matches still to be completed.
Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka, one of the victims of soggy Saturday when his match against Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin was cancelled, made up for lost time with a rapid 6-3 6-3 6-4 win completed just before a heavy rain shower arrived.
The Australian Open champion was facing three matches in three days and though he wasted little excess energy against the bespectacled Istomin, he did grumble about the schedulers.
“They just say what’s going to be the schedule and that’s it,” Wawrinka said of the decision not to play his third-round match when the rain stopped on Saturday.
“Even if you want to talk to them, they’re not going to change anything. They don’t listen to the player. They just do what they think is good for them.”
Japan’s Kei Nishikori needed only four games to complete a 3-6 6-3 4-6 7-6(4) 6-4 third-round victory over Simone Bolelli after their match had been suspended because of bad light at the weekend.
Title holder Andy Murray neutralised the big-swinging game of lofty South African Kevin Anderson to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals 6-4 6-3 7-6 (6).
The 27-year-old Briton returned sharply and drew the 2.03-metre Anderson into rallies to impose his game on the Wimbledon grass where he is on a run of 17 successive victories.
“When it was outdoors I played very well and was in a good position but when we came indoors he was striking the ball better and serving better and I was dropping shorter,” Murray told reporters.
“That meant there was a lot more running at the end because he was playing very well.”
Spain’s Feliciano Lopez also belatedly reached the last 16, beating big-serving American John Isner in a four-set match.
Isner’s defeat left the United States without a representative in the last 16 of the men’s or women’s singles for the first time since 1911.
Earlier in the day teenager Madison Keys had been forced to withdraw with a leg injury before resuming her third-round match against Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova.
They were locked at 6-6 in the second set when darkness fell on Saturday, with Shvedova having won the opener.
Shvedova will play last year’s runner-up Sabine Lisicki in the fourth round after she claimed a 6-4 3-6 6-1 win over 11th seed Ana Ivanovic.
Croatia’s Marin Cilic took advantgage of a drier interlude to beat Jeremy Chardy 7-6(8) 6-4 6-4.
Late result: Djokovic bt Tsonga 6-3 6-4 7-6.