Girls interrupted

Fifth seed Stosur and seventh seed Wozniacki beaten; Federer sails through

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.

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.

Australian Samantha Stosur became the highest seed casualty as the womens number five lost 6-2 0-6 6-4 to Dutchwoman Arantxa Rus. The US Open champion 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 but never looked comfortable and failed to claw back a 3-0 deficit despite saving two match points.

This year I hated grass a little bit less than the previous years, Stosur,who has suffered five first-round defeats at Wimbledon and four second-round losses,told reporters.

Class apart

Roger Federer gave Prince Charles a bow,then gave Fabio Fognini a royal thumping. With the Prince of Wales visiting Wimbledon for the first time since 1970,Federer was at his best Wednesday and beat Fognini 6-1 6-3 6-2. Six-time champion won 37 of 41 points on his first serve,and won 21 of 23 points at the net against Fognini,an Italian ranked 68th.

Sloane Stephens,a 19-year-old American playing Wimbledon for the first time,saved five set points in the first set and beat No. 23 Petra Cetkovska 7-6 6 4-6 6-3. In the final set,Stephens trailed love-30 in four consecutive service games,yet won them all. Also,Heather Watson became the first British woman to reach the third round since 2002 when she defeated American Jamie Hampton 6-1 6-4. French Open finalist Sara Errani needed only seven seconds to complete a rain-interrupted win 6-1 6-3 over CoCo Vandeweghe.

No. 21-seeded Milos Raonic required only one game to complete a rain-interrupted first-round win over Santiago Giraldo,6-4 6-4 6-4. No. 7 David Ferrer reached the second round by beating Dustin Brown 7-6 5 6-4 6-4.

Bhupathi-Bopanna win

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Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna notched up a straight-set victory and advanced to the second round of the mens doubles. The Indian pair got the better of Marcel Felder of Uruguay and Tunisias Malek Jaziri 6-0 7-6 1 6-2. The duo will take on the winner of the match between Russias Mikhail Elgin and Uzbekistans Denis Istomin and Spaniards Pablo Andujar and Guillermo Garcia-Lopezin.