Men's singles quarter-final latest:
M Safin (Rus) v F LOPEZ (Spa) 31
0-1
* denotes server
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(Not all contributions can be used) By Ben Dirs at Wimbledon
FIRST SET
Safin 0-1 Lopez
Blink and you'll have missed most of that first service game from Lopez - 40-15. I missed just about al of it, not because I was blinking, but because I was eating a muffin.
1357: Lopez leads Safin 4-1 on head-to-heads, including a straight set win in 2005. But that doesn't really mean anything - Safin is to men's tennis what The Verve are to popular music - long periods of nothing much punctuated by the odd blockbuster performance. It's Lopez to serve first.
1350: Brace yourselves, here's some stats for you: Safin's not been in the best of form this year - it's only the two-time Grand Slam winner's second quarter-final of 2008 and the first time he's won four successive matches since 2006. As for Lopez, he defeated three players ranked outside the top 100 in the first three rounds before his epic match against Marcos Baghdatis in the round of four, an encounter that lasted three hours, 41 minutes. Lopez trailed 4-5 0-40 in the final set but saved three match points and went on to take it 8-6. I wondered how long it would take one of the TV commentators to say "enigmatic Russian"... five seconds...
1345: Marvellous news at Wimbledon - the rain has abated and knocking up is due to start at 1345 BST. Legendary coach Nick Bollettieri is on the radio talking about today's quarter-finals and there's more than a hint of New Yoik Mafiosi about him, he should be called Nicky Five Racquets. And he just said "fanny", which made me giggle.
1340: Dear Andy Murray, deliver us from a summer of barbeques spent chatting about the credit crunch and stabbings... lift the gloom Andy, lift the gloom...
(BBC)
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