Argentine Pella knocks out last year’s finalist

London: Kevin Anderson, the 2018 runner-up, was dumped out of Wimbledon on Friday, leaving just four of the top 10 seeds in the tournament. Anderson slum-ped to a shock third round 4-6, 3-6, 6-7 (4/7) defeat to Argentina’s Guido Pella, the 26th seed.

The South African’s defeat means that only Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Kei Nishikori remain of the top 10 players who started out.

“He made life really difficult for me,” said Anderson, playing just his second tournament since March after recovering from an elbow injury.

Pella goes on to face 2016 runner-up Milos Raonic for a place in the quarterfinals. “I played an unbelievable three sets,” said Pella, who had never gone beyond the third round of a Grand Slam tournament in seven years.

In the women’s event, Czech third seed Karolina Pliskova reached the fourth round for the second successive year with a 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 win over Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan.

Pliskova, who fired 14 aces and 42 winners, will next face compatriot Karolina Muchova, the world number 68, who put out Estonian 20th seed Anett Kontaveit 7-6 (9/7), 6-3.

World number 60 Zhang Shuai of China made the fourth round for the first time, coming back from 0-4 down in the opening set to beat former world number one Caroline Wozniacki 6-4, 6-2 who failed to see eye-to-eye with the Hawk-Eye line call review system.

Romanian seventh seed Simona Halep came from 1-5 down in the first set to defeat fellow former world number one Victoria Azarenka 6-3, 6-1. Azarenka was undone by 33 unforced errors.
Nadal ousts Kyrgios

Rafael Nadal may not end up winning a third Wimbledon singles title but he will take joy from having beaten his ‘bete noire’ Nick Kyrgios in an engrossing but bad-tempered grudge match.

The 33-year-old Spaniard on Thursday came through in four sets 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (7/3) which saw fiery but talented Australian Kyrgios receive a warning for unsportsmanlike behaviour after a running argument with the umpire while twice serving under-arm.

Nadal’s pleasure was evident when he sealed the match against a man he had accused of lacking respect for the sport as he fist-pumped and jumped in the air yelling to his camp.

Serena Williams dropped the first set against 18-year-old Slovenian qualifier Kaja Juvan before prevailing 2-6, 6-2, 6-4.