London: It was a day of shocks at Wimbledon as after Maria Sharapova made a secod round exit at the Wimbledon, defending champion Roger Federer's juggernaut on the grass court was halted by Ukrainian Sergiv Stakhovsky here on Wednesday. He stopped the Swiss from reaching his 36 consecutive grand slam quarter-finals.
The third day at Wimbledon was also on limelight as it drew the maximum attention because of the number of upsets and injuries that took place in a span of just few hours.
Fortunes kept on fluctuating in this entertaining contest as out of four, three sets went into the tie-breakers. But it was the Ukrainian who edged past Federer by 6-7(5), 7-6(5), 7-5, 7-6(5) in the match that lasted for exactly three hours.
The World number 116th was looking outstanding with the shots that he played to make the defending champion surrender before him. This was the earliest Wimbledon exit for Federer since a first-round loss in 2002.
Meanwhile, on the day of upsets, Lleyton Hewitt was also shown the exit door of All England Club on Wednesday. He was outplayed by German qualifier Dustin Brown to shatter his dream of making a rollicking comeback.
The German not just made his way to the third round but also made good number of fans with his wide range of shots, which were good enough to beat the Australian veteran 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (3/7), 6-2 in the second round clash.
In the other tie of the men’s singles, John Isner walked off because the injury he sustained while serving in the third game of his second round match on Tuesday. He had to retire just after playing two games against his French opponent Adrian Mannarino.
Isner famously defeated Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon in 2010 in a tie that lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes over the course of three days. The final set finished at 70-68 in his favour.
Mannarino will now take on Dustin Brown, who eased past Lleyton Hewitt for a place in the last 16.
Earlier in the day, sixth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was forced to retire from his Wimbledon second round match against Latvia's Ernests Gulbis with a knee injury.
Tsonga, who won the opening set by 6-3, was looking in good rhythm. But Gulbis came back from behind to restrict his French counterpart from capitalising on his initial good work and he won the second set by 6-3.
The 28-year-old Tsonga, a semi-finalist in 2012, finally gave up when he lost the third set 3-6. The French star was the seventh player to see his Wimbledon campaign ended by injury on Wednesday.
World number two Victoria Azarenka, Steve Darcis, who put out Rafael Nadal in the first round, and Marin Cilic all withdrew due to injury.
John Isner and Radek Stepanek both quit during their second round matches.
Just moments before Tsonga's retirement, Kazakhstan's Yaroslava Shvedova withdrew from her second round clash against 2011 champion Petra Kvitova, the eighth seed, with a right arm injury.
