Murray survives giant test, Serena advances

AFP/London

Andy Murray of Britain celebrates after defeating Ivo Karlovic of Croatia in their men’s singles match at the Wimbledon tennis championships yesterday

Andy Murray survived a trip into Wimbledon’s land of the giant yesterday to reach the third round while Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams also advanced with contrasting victories.Fourth seed Murray, a semi-finalist for the last three years, cut 6ft 10in Croat Ivo Karlovic down to size as the world number four clinched a 7-5, 6-7 (5/7), 6-2, 7-6 (7/4) victory. He next plays Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus. Karlovic fired 17 aces to Murray’s 11 and 58 winners to 43. But the Croat was undone by 42 unforced errors compared to the Scot’s meagre eight. “Winning is all that is important when you play a guy with his style. It’s so challenging to get into a rhythm,” Murray said. Former champions Sharapova and Williams took drastically different routes into the third round. Top seed Sharapova, the 2004 champion, had to dig deep to clinch a gritty 7-6 (7/3), 6-7 (3/7), 6-0 victory over Bulgaria’s Tsvetana Pironkova, a semi-finalist in 2010 and quarter-finalist last year. Sharapova, playing her first tournament since her maiden French Open triumph, had recovered from 5-2 down to take the first set and had just broken to move 3-1 ahead when the tie was suspended due to bad light on Wednesday evening. On the resumption, Pironkova belied her ranking of 38 to level the tie as the Court One crowd sensed an upset. It was the first set the 24-year-old had snatched from the Russian in four meetings, but Sharapova took her 2012 three-set record to a perfect nine from nine by racing through the decider. She will next face Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-Wei as last year’s runner-up tries to reach the Wimbledon final for the third time. Four-time champion Williams reached the third round with a 6-1, 6-4 demolition of Hungarian qualifier Melinda Czink and next faces Chinese 25th seed Zheng Jie, who she beat in the 2008 semi-finals, for a place in the last 16. Andy Roddick, a three-time runner-up, went through to the last 32 with a 6-3, 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 win over Germany’s Bjorn Phau and will face Spanish seventh seed David Ferrer who put out France’s Kenny De Schepper 7-6 (7/1), 6-2, 6-4. Women’s ninth seed Marion Bartoli of France, the runner-up to Venus Williams in 2007, was knocked out by Croatian qualifier Mirjana Lucic, 6-4, 6-3. Lucic was a semi-finalist in 1999 before her career and personal life went into a tailspin. But, at 30, she is enjoying a new lease of life on the tour. Kei Nishikori, the 19th seed, became the first Japanese man to reach the third round for 17 years by beating France’s Florent Serra 6-3, 7-5, 6-2.Meanwhile, Karlovic accused Wimbledon officials of cheating in a bid to help home favourite Murray after the giant Croat was called for a series of foot-faults during his defeat on Thursday. The 33-year-old was left fuming after 11 foot-fault calls from the linesjudges led to nine crucial double-faults and he insisted his treatment called the credibility of the tournament into question. “I feel cheated. In a grand slam, on Centre Court,” the big-serving Karlovic said. “Right now I’m angry about it, little bit pissed, because I don’t expect it here. Even though it is against English guy who they always want to win. “It was a little bit outrageous. In my whole life, ever since I was eight years old, I didn’t do this many foot faults. It was something like 11. “It was never called when it was like 30 Love or 40 Love.  It was always when it was 30 All or in a tiebreak. I mean, what is this? “I had a chance to win definitely. If I get these 10 points, who would have the win? I don’t know. You do the math. “It’s Wimbledon, Centre Court, and they do this. This is BS. After this match, the whole credibility of this tournament went down for me.” Karlovic fired down 17 aces, but he felt his performance was fatally hindered by the calls. The world number 59, who at 6ft 10in is the tallest man on the ATP Tour, deliberately stood further back behind the line to avoid being penalised again, but even then several more foot-faults were called. “After I don’t know how many, I stood a little bit back so they cannot call it, but they still did. So it was outrageous,” Karlovic said. “Normally my left leg is on the line, but I went back and they still did it. “Maybe I did it, but I don’t usually and in my whole life I never did 11.”