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Stosur loses to Rus to complete Australian woe
Samantha Stosur became the highest seed to fall at the championships when the Australian was bundled out in the second round by Dutch player Arantxa Rus.
The fifth seed, the only player from the former tennis power house to reach the second round, lost 6-2, 0-6, 6-4 in a wildly fluctuating match on Court One.
The U.S. Open champion, seeded five, lost six games in a row to surrender the first set before reeling off six on the spin to take the match into a decider.
The wildly fluctuating nature of the match continued as she fell behind 3-0 in the third set before digging in.
She saved two match points trailing 5-3 and then looked poised to level at 5-5 as she led 40-15 on serve but then crumbled on Court One, ending the match with a sliced backhand into the bottom of the net.
Defeat continued Stosur's dismal record at the grasscourt grand slam, where she has never gone beyond the third round in nine previous attempts.
It also completes a miserable tournament for Australian tennis. Of the five women entered into the main singles draw only Stosur managed to win a match while the men fared even worse with all four representatives losing in the first round.
Federer puts on performance fit for a prince
Britain's Prince Charles made a rare, if fleeting, visit to Wimbledon on Wednesday but stayed just long enough to watch Roger Federer produce another regal performance on Centre Court to move serenely into the third round.
Swiss Federer, bidding for a record-equalling seventh men's singles title at the All England Club, outclassed Fabio Fognini 6-1, 6-3, 6-2, displaying his full repertoire of shots in front of an appreciative Royal Box.
Federer bowed to the heir to the throne before his match and Charles and his wife Camilla gave the 30-year-old maestro a standing ovation after he thrashed Fognini.
"We are thrilled for the tennis family that they came to watch today," Federer said after a victory that resembled a royal procession.
The languid Fognini played more of a part in proceedings in the second and third sets but his body language was that of a man just making up the numbers as Federer treated the crowd in a match that flashed by in 74 minutes.
"I didn't think it was that easy a match," Federer said. "I really tried to focus hard and made sure I played sort of a clean match, which I was able to do again today."
Federer, who last won the title in 2009, will face either Michael Russell or Julien Benneteau in the third round.
Wozniacki dumped out by Paszek
Seventh seed Caroline Wozniacki lost 5-7, 7-6, 6-4 to Austrian Tamira Paszek in a disrupted first-round clash at Wimbledon on Wednesday.
In a match which started on Tuesday and was interrupted again by rain on Wednesday, former world number one Wozniacki took the first set and led 2-0 in the second but Paszek continued to go for her shots and fought back to win a tiebreak 7-4 under the closed roof on Centre Court.
Paszek, who won the Eastbourne warm-up tournament last weekend, served for the match at 5-3 in the decider but Dane Wozniacki broke back, only to drop her serve in the next game to hand victory to the world number 37.
It was the first time Wozniacki, who has never won a grand slam title despite getting to the top of the rankings, had lost in the first round at Wimbledon.
Melzer shocks Wawrinka
Several first-round matches had to be completed on Wednesday after rain and bad light ended play early the previous evening.
Spain's seventh seed David Ferrer finished off Germany's Dustin Brown 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 but 25th seed Stanislas Wawrinka, who partnered Federer to Olympic doubles gold in Beijing four years ago, lost a five-set cliffhanger to Juergen Melzer.
Roddick returns to finish off Briton Baker
Andy Roddick moved into the Wimbledon second round with an efficient 7-6, 6-4, 7-5 win over British wildcard Jamie Baker after returning on Wednesday to complete his opening match.
The big-serving American was a set and a break up when the match was suspended in the early evening gloom and drizzle on Tuesday, but he came back to finish off his opponent after a break of almost 22 hours.
Three-times runner-up Roddick had struggled to crank into gear, labouring to the first set in a tiebreak before breaking in the fourth game of the second.
Baker lacked the weapons to threaten 30th seed Roddick who broke in the 11th game of the third set before closing it out with an ace to set up a second-round match against German Bjorn Phau.
Classy Clijsters clatters through
Rip up the rankings. Form is temporary, class is permanent.
While the giggles are gone and the gymnast's genes less evident, that hooked, looped, whipped, thumped forehand stole the show at Wimbledon on Wednesday as Kim Clijsters, on her valedictory tour, barged into the third round.
It was fitting that it should be a shoulder-height crunched forehand which sealed her passage -- the shot creating a sonic boom amplified by the closed roof on centre court.
Clijsters is bouncing in the basement of the world's top 50 these days, but come grand slams her quality is at the fore, and on a drizzly, overcast South-west London evening Andrea Hlavackova was relegated to bit-part actress as the Clijsters circus rolled on.
Her demeanour has been matured by marriage, motherhood and the passing years, and it was a muted joy which heralded her 6-3, 6-3 victory -- a clenched fist and a determined nod rather than a skip and giggle.
"Yeah, I was very happy with the way everything went today," the 29-year-old winner of four grand slam titles said.
"I felt it was another step upwards from my first match against (Jelena) Jankovic. I was really focused once I got out there and just really tried to be ready from the start."
She is too long in the tooth to get carried away, however. "I was able to just keep my level up throughout that whole match," she said flashing a smile, before switching to Flemish.
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