Tennis

Li makes tennis history at Wimbledon

(AFP)
Updated: 2006-07-04 06:46

Fourth seed Sharapova had been dramatically under-par for most of her Court Two encounter but after taking a lengthy toilet break at the end of the second set she returned with renewed vigour to ease through to the last eight.

By contrast, seventh seed Dementieva made sure of a her place in the last eight with a quickfire 6-2, 6-0 win over Perry, ending America's interest in both singles competitions.

Myskina reached the last eight for the second year in succession beating Serbia's Jelena Jankovic, the conqueror of defending women's champion Venus Williams 6-4, 7-6 (7/5) and will face Mauresmo.

Henin-Hardenne, seeking an elusive title here to complete her Grand Slam collection, steamrolled the feeble challenge of Slovakian 15th seed Daniela Hantuchova 6-3, 6-1 in just 65 minutes.

She next faces Severine Bremond, who continued her extraoardinary run by putting out Japanese veteran Ai Sugiyama, the conqueror of Martina Hingis, 7-6 (13/11), 6-3.

Clijsters eased through with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Polish wildcard Agnieszka Radwanska.

On a day when temperatures shot up to 32 degrees, top seeds Roger Federer and Amelie Mauresmo were ice-cool.

Federer brushed aside the Czech Republic's Tomas Berdych 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 to move closer to a fourth successive Wimbledon title while Mauresmo, the

Australian Open champion, was equally untroubled beating Ana Ivanovic 6-3, 6-4.

Double

French Open champion Rafael Nadal reached the Wimbledon last eight for the first time with a 6-3, 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 win against Georgia's Irakli Labadze.

However, the young Spaniard spent most his post-match news conference defending his reputation after his name was linked to the ongoing cycling doping controversy in his own country.