Murray, Williams through as rain causes more pain

Andy Murray and Serena Williams were Wimbledon’s biggest winners yesterday, but rain wreaked more havoc on the tournament, sparking fevered speculation of a Monday finish. Murray completed his last-16 win over Marin Cilic, in a match that had already been held over from Monday, and will face Spain’s David Ferrer in today’s quarter-finals where he’ll bid to reach a fourth successive semi-final. Four-time winner Williams put out defending champion Petra Kvitova and will meet either world number two Victoria Azarenka or unseeded Austrian Tamira Paszek in tomorrow’s semi-final. Angelique Kerber won an all-German battle with Sabine Lisicki, the conqueror of top seed Maria Sharapova, to reach the last four for the first time and claim a tour-leading 45 wins in 2012. She will face either Polish third seed Agnieszka Radwanska or Maria Kirilenko of Russia, but their Court One clash was halted for the night shortly before 8pm (1900GMT) yesterday. The pair’s struggles with the weather, which saw three lenghty delays, were a snapshot of the day’s frustrations at the All England Club after they had originally arrived on the court at 2:20pm (1320GMT), almost five and a half hours earlier. With the weather forecast remaining mixed for the coming days, Wimbledon chief executive Richard Lewis said he hoped the championships would finish on time on Sunday rather than spill over into Monday. “It’s too soon to start thinking about that now,” he told the Live at Wimbledon online channel. “We might get two or three hours’ play today; we might get a lot of matches finished which would help. “The forecast is pretty good for the next couple of days. It’s dry and we could get a lot of matches played over the next couple of days and the issue of playing on a third Monday would go away.” The last time play was forced over into a third Monday was in 2001 when Goran Ivanisevic defeated Pat Rafter in the men’s final. British fourth seed Murray beat 16th-seeded Croatian Cilic 7-5, 6-2, 6-3 on Court One. He will now attempt to go on to a fourth semi-final on the trot, but will first have to get past seventh-seeded David Ferrer who put out former US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 to reach the quarter-finals for the first time at the 10th attempt “I don’t see Ferrer as a clay court specialist. He won last week on grass (in ‘s-Hertogenbosch), so he’s won, what, eight matches in a row on the grass,” said Murray. Also making today’s last eight were Florian Mayer and Philipp Kohlschreiber. It’s the first time since Wimbledon in 1997 that two German men have made the last eight of a Grand Slam. Mayer, the 31st seed, defeated Richard Gasquet of France, 6-3, 6-1, 3-6,6-2 in another match which was held over from Monday. For 27th-seeded Kohlschreiber, it was a particularly memorable day as he reached his first Grand Slam quarter-final at the 33rd attempt by clinching a 6-1, 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 win over American qualifier Brian Baker. Only three of the scheduled last 16 men’s ties had been completed on Monday with Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Mikhail Youzhny able to enjoy a day off before Wednesday’s quarter-finals. Federer will play Youzhny on Wednesday looking for a 14th win in 14 matches against the Russian. Defending champion Djokovic will tackle Mayer, who has reached the quarter-finals for the second time, eight years after his first appearance. Kohlschreiber will face French fifth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who reached the last eight for the third successive year by defeating American 10th seed Mardy Fish 4-6, 7-6 (7/4), 6-4, 6-4. In the women’s quarter-finals, Kvitova tipped Williams to win a fifth Wimbledon crown after the US sixth seed used her experience to dethrone the Czech with a 6-3, 7-5 victory. “It is very difficult (to beat Serena). I can’t say impossible. That’s why she’s the great champion, because she knows what she needs to play in the important points. So I think that it’s really tough to beat her,” said Kvitova. Kerber emerged victorious in the all-German clash with Lisicki after blowing four match points, the eighth seed triumphing 6-3, 6-7 (7/9), 7-5. Double blow for Indian doubles London: India’s plans for Olympic tennis glory suffered a blow yesterday as key doubles partnership Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna were knocked out of Wimbledon, along with top doubles player Leander Paes. Bhupathi and Bopanna, the seventh seeds, were beaten 7-5, 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 in the second round by Russia’s Mikhail Elgin and Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan. Meanwhile Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek, the fourth seeds, were defeated 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (7/2), 8-6 by 15th seeds Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Brazil’s Marcelo Melo in the third round. Bhupathi and Bopanna will represent India at the Olympics tennis tournament later this month, to be held at the All England Club. Paes will also be back at Wimbledon, though he has been paired with the much lower-ranked Vishnu Vardhan, following a well-documented spat at the All India Tennis Association. Elsewhere in the men’s doubles third round, Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and his Dutch partner Jean-Julien Rojer, the eighth seeds, were knocked out in five sets by wildcards Jonathan Marray of Britain and Frederik Nielsen of Denmark. The wildcard pairing won 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (7/4), 6-7 (7/4), 5-7, 7-5 in a knife-edge match on Court 14. To complete the day of Asian misery at the All England Club, Thai veteran Tamarine Tanasugarn was also knocked out of the women’s doubles. Tamarine and her New Zealand partner Marina Erakovic lost 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 to Russian fifth seeds Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina. India’s Sania Mirza is still in the women’s doubles third round with her colourful US partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands, as are Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-Wei and her German partner Sabine Lisicki. In the mixed doubles, Paes and Vesnina are still in the second round, as are Qureshi and his Czech partner Andrea Hlavackova, who face Hsieh and Britain’s Colin Fleming.