Wimbledon 2005 News
By Alix Ramsay | June 27, 2005

This morning there were five, by tea time there were only three. Still, of the three, each has a decent chance of winning the title. With the American contingent whittled down by 40 per cent, it was left to Andy Roddick, Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport to fight another day and head for the quarter finals. Manic Monday - the day when all fourth round matches, men and women are thrown out on any court available, was over.

Roddick, as he always does, moved past Guillermo Coria. This time he did it 6-3, 7-6, 6-4 and was rather pleased with himself. Coria had presented a difficult, but not too difficult, challenge and Roddick was able to find a solution to the problem.

"The first set he was a little off," Roddick said. "He was missing from the baseline, kind of was spraying balls. I stayed back a little bit more. Then he kind of got grooved in a little bit more. That's when you have to kind of try to put the pressure on a little bit more. I was able to do that today.

"I'm playing fine. You know, I'm still alive. I'm in the quarters. You know, I feel like I'm hitting the ball pretty well. I got through a couple tough situations today. You know, I feel good. I'm still alive, so that's good."

And Roddick likes being alive at Wimbledon. Unlike the mayhem the other grand slam events, life in SW19 has a homely feel. The players rent houses around the All England Club and walk to work of a morning and walk to the restaurants of an evening. Roddick thinks it's "cosy". But what he loves most of all if the start of the tournament.

"One of my favorite things," he explained, "is when we get here for the practice week, the first walk, when you walk in the door, there's nobody here, so you can walk around the grounds. The first walk from our locker room across the venue to Aorangi. That's always fun. You kind of get the feel for it. You're excited to be back. You can kind of feel Wimbledon inside of you. It's a cool tournament. It's a great event to be a part of."

And Roddick intends on being a part of the tournament for a while. He next faces Sebastien Grosjean, the 6-4, 6-7, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 winner over Dmitry Tursunov. Roddick and Grosjean are pals, practicing together on a regular basis. So were these "balls-out" practice sets or something a little gentler, asked one daft hack.

"Balls-out sets?" a startled Roddick asked. "I keep my balls in."

Glad to hear that, Andy. Now then, about Mr Grosjean. He is one of the best grass court players in the world, third only behind the magnificent Roger Federer and that man Roddick. He may not have the biff-bash-boff game if the big men but he moves like lightning around the court and he is craft, cunning and a thorn in the side of all but the very, very best on this green stuff. Just ask Tim Henman (remember him?). Britain's second finest - after the magnificent Scot, Andy Murray - has had many a stinging losses to the wee Frenchman over the years.

"Seb's getting through week after week on grass," Roddick said. "He's proven that he's one of the top grass court players in the world. That's tough to deal with. But I feel like I'm playing pretty well, I'm confident."

Davenport is feeling rather confident, too. She huffed and puffed her way past Kim Clijsters 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 and now faces Svetlana Kuznetsova. Having finally stopped a losing run against the Belgian - Clijsters has won eight of their last 10 encounters - she is now feeling as if the title is by no mean beyond her.

"Besides being a great tennis player," Davenport said, "one of her best attributes is that she wants it more than anybody out there and I knew that. I thought: OK I'm not going to give in. I felt like I gave in a lot in the tiebreak but able to recoup in the third. I was just trying really hard not to worry about anything but the next point. But that's really hard for me. It just feels like it was a big match, a match that I was looking forward to the whole tournament when I saw the draw."

Venus Williams gained some family revenge over Jill Craybas, walloping the woman who had beaten Serena on Saturday night. She trounced Craybas 6-0, 6-2. " I definitely want to do it a little bit for my sister," Venus laughed. "But mostly it was for me."

It was asking a lot top imagine that Craybas could join the likes of Martina Hingis, Davenport, Clijsters, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Steffi Graf and become one of an elite little band of champions who have beaten both Williams sisters in one tournament. So, Craybas did the decent thing and followed the form book.

Dent was the first American casualty of the day, losing 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-3 to Lleyton Hewitt. He played like a plank at the start, got marginally better in the third set - a move that coincided with Hewitt going off the boil a little, and then was thumped in the fourth.

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