Sharapova out at Wimbledon
WIMBLEDON, England — While rain fell over the rest of the All England Club on Monday, the only thing falling over Centre Court was feathers.
On another wet day at Wimbledon with one more big surprise — top-ranked Maria Sharapova going out in the fourth round — there was another slightly surreal scene at a tournament that already has had its share of them.
A pigeon eager to get out from Centre Court flew into the closed roof, shedding feathers that drifted slowly down onto the grass surface where Victoria Azarenka was in the process of routing Ana Ivanovic.
The second-ranked Azarenka had to interrupt her serve and walk around her side of the court picking up the white feathers before carrying on and completing a 6-1, 6-0 victory.
“I just saw some feathers coming down,” Azarenka said. “Actually, I don’t know how it got there. The roof was closed. It was kind of interesting.”
Roger Federer had already been out on Centre Court, beating Xavier Malisse of Belgium 7-6 (1), 6-1, 4-6, 6-3. That was before the rain started so there was no roof and no pigeons to deal with — only a bad back that gave the six-time champion a bit of a scare early on. Federer had to leave the court when leading 4-3 for a medical timeout that lasted more than eight minutes as he received treatment on his back.
Aside from a slower serve, he didn’t appear hindered by the problem when he came back, and went on to stave off Malisse’s comeback attempt by going from 2-0 down to 5-2 up in the fourth set.
“Honestly I’m not too worried,” said Federer, who also needed treatment on his back during his fourth-round win over Feliciano Lopez in 2003 en route to his first Wimbledon title. “I’ve had bad backs over the years. They go as quick as they came. But of course I have to keep an eye on it now. Two good nights’ sleeps, and I’ll be 100 percent on Wednesday. I’m pretty convinced, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to pull out the match the way I did today.”
So did Novak Djokovic, who played the late match on Centre Court, but got out of there quickly by beating fellow Serb Viktor Troicki 6-3, 6-1, 6-3 in just 90 minutes. Djokovic also had to deal with a feather fluttering onto the court.
Just add that to the list of other strange events on Centre Court so far — like Rafael Nadal losing to 100th-ranked Lukas Rosol in the second round on Thursday, Federer having to rally from two sets down against Julien Benneteau on Friday and organizers allowing play to go on past the 11 p.m. deadline to let Andy Murray serve out his victory over Marcos Baghdatis on Saturday in the latest finish ever at Wimbledon.
