Roddick out of service as Lu repairs to last eight

WIMBLEDON MEN'S SINGLES:A PERSECUTED Andy Roddick stalked court two yesterday shaking his head, aghast at what was unravelling before him as a journeyman player from Taiwan crushed his dreams of a first Wimbledon title.

In a day when top seeds Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Andy Murray stretched their legs and put good light between themselves and their opponents in straight sets, the three times defeated Wimbledon finalist fought a spooked, uneasy match of attrition over four hours 36 minutes falling 4-6, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-4), 6-7 (5-7), 9-7.

Yen-Hsun Lu becomes the first Asian man to reach the quarter- final of a Grand Slam since Japan’s Shuzo Matsuoka in 1995.

The 82-ranked Lu asked Roddick to play a tiebreak in the fourth set to save his American bacon and when Roddick pulled himself out of that, thoughts fell on Lu manfully playing the traditional plucky no hoper. But he had different ideas and as the fifth set fell game by game with service, it was clear he was not for choking.

The 26-year-old, who has never won a title, mixed up a game of big serves, precise volleying and also threw the odd piece of junk over the net at Roddick. It was the Roddick game that buckled.

“I don’t think stunned is the right word. I take every match very seriously. I always struggle to describe my mood,” said Roddick afterwards. “I’m sure you can use your intuition and come up with something.

“Credit to him,” he added. “He played high risk, but he executed very well. He deserved the win more than I did. That’s for sure. He did a good job in controlling the middle of the court. I didn’t get broken for five sets. It was my returning that was bad. It was crap.”

Roddick had done what many of the top seeds despise in themselves when the ball is not falling sweetly their way and that was to let the match descend into the realm of anyone being able to win it. A dropped serve a few ragged points or a purple patch from the underdog ensured that as it progressed towards simply holding or breaking serve, it dramatically became a roll of the dice.

A tight fifth set, one in which Roddick had to continually serve to stay in the match and which arrived after three sets decided on a tiebreak, proved to be his nemesis.

At 8-7 Lu finally carved out a match point on the famous American serve and when Roddick hit a poor approach, it was Lu who saw his chance and passed him at the net.

Roddick had not lost to a player as lowly ranked as Lu in almost two years, when he was beaten by the similarly uncelebrated Viktor Troicki in 2008. He had also played Lu three times, twice this year alone and won all three meetings in two sets.

“He was keeping me off balance not letting me get set. He was executing that for a whole day,” said a disconsolate Roddick. “That said I had shots but I didn’t take advantage of them

“Through three sets I was playing horrendously really, really badly to the point I though if I could keep balls in the court. When you dig a hole and given someone confidence, it is very difficult. Like I said the thing he did very well is serve. I thought he served better than normal.”

Federer disposed of his former doubles partner, Jurgen Melzer 6-3, 6-2, 6-3. He had never played against the Austrian 16th seed but came out aggressively from the start. Asked whether he intimidates players on Centre Court, Federer, who faces Tomas Berdych in the quarter-final, looked mildly amused. “I don’t play that trick,” he said. “Honestly I don’t even know how it works.”

Murray, after a tricky opening set, unpicked American Sam Querrey in a seamless three sets 7-5, 6-3, 6-4, while Nadal dominated, Paul Henri Mathieu, the Frenchman tended to by a physiotherapist in the second set before dropping out 6-4, 6-2, 6-2.

“It was good, it was different to the first matches,” said Murray. “I didn’t serve so well today, was good from the back of the court but didn’t make too many mistakes. Sometimes you can play bad games.

“I’m not going to play my best every minute of the tournament. I’m not going to serve my best every minute. Today I did more running than in my first few matches but I had to. You have to be prepared to change the way you’re playing if you want to win big tournaments.”

Lleyton Hewitt also departed. The Australian took a set off Novak Djokovic but Djokovic didn’t bend. He won the first two sets, dropped the third before winning the fourth 6-4.