By Dan Palmer |
Spain’s defending champion Garbiñe Muguruza was dumped out of the women’s tournament in the second round as play continued at Wimbledon.
The third seed, who won her second Grand Slam on the grass courts at the All England Club last year, suffered a shock exit to Belgium’s Alison Van Uytvanck.
It was a powerful and mentally strong performance from the underdog who came from behind to win 5-7, 6-2, 6-1.
Not since Steffi Graf in 1994 has a defending women’s champion exited at such an early stage.
In the men’s draw, Croatia’s third seed Marin Cilic was another major casualty on day four in London.
Last year’s beaten finalist had a two set lead before rain halted his second round clash with Argentina’s Guido Pella last night.
The match resumed today and it was Pella who turned things around, taking the third set and then leveling by winning the fourth via tiebreak.
Pella then wrapped up a 3-6, 1-6, 6-4, 7-6, 7-5 victory to reach round three at the expense of the 2014 US Open champion.
“The rain coming helped me a lot,” Pella, who had never won at Wimbledon before this year, told BBC Sport.
“Yesterday he was playing so, so well and I couldn’t do anything.
“Today, I started to play more aggressively and fight for every ball and that is why I won.
“Grass isn’t my favourite surface but I started to feel more confident and served a lot better.”
Elsewhere in the men’s event, Spain’s number two seed Rafael Nadal beat Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Kukushkin in straight sets despite collecting two time violations.
The 17-time Grand Slam champion, a double winner at Wimbledon, won 6-4, 6-3, 6-4.
Serbia’s triple champion Novak Djokovic continued his quest for a 13th Grand Slam crown as the 12th seed, still looking for his best form after an injury lay-off, defeated Horacio Zeballos of Argentina 6-1, 6-2, 6-3.
In the women’s draw, top seed Simona Halep knocked out China’s Zheng Saisai.
The Romanian, the newly crowned French Open champion, recovered from being 5-3 down in the first set by winning 10 games in a row, taking the match 7-5, 6-0.
There was disappointment for the home crowd as Britain’s number one Johanna Konta, a semi-finalist last year, was ousted 6-3, 6-4 by Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulková.
Former runner-up Eugenie Bouchard of Canada lost to Australia’s Ash Barty, 6-4, 7-5.
Republished with permission from insidethegames.biz.