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AFP Swan Lake Sharapova in Wimbledon rain row by Dave James Sun Jul 1, 2:57 AM ET LONDON (AFP) - Maria Sharapova was plunged into a Wimbledon rain row on Saturday as torrential downpours meant that just two matches were completed and drenched fans saw only 75 minutes of action.
The Russian pin-up defeated Japanese veteran Ai Sugiyama 6-3, 6-3 on Court One which was swamped by heavy rain as she served for a place in the last 16. Sugiyama was furious with umpire Lynn Welch, claiming that the surface was too treacherous to continue. I thought it was too wet to play because the conditions were not perfect," said Sugiyama, a veteran of 15 Wimbledon campaigns. "It's tough to say whether it should have been called off. I couldn't refuse to play and I didn't want to give it away." Diplomatically, the 31-year-old Sugiyama refused to speculate on whether the tie would have been halted had the 20-year-old Russian, the 2004 champion and the poster girl of the sport, been the one facing match points. Sharapova, dressed appropriately for the conditions in her Swan Lake-themed dress, insisted that the court was safe to play. "It wasn't that wet and the surface wasn't that slippery. The umpire came down on to the court, felt the grass and said we should continue," she said. "But it was a tense time wondering if you might have to go off on match point." Sharapova will now face either former triple champion Venus Williams or Japan's Akiko Morigami for a place in the quarter-finals. The American won the first set 6-2 but was trailing 4-1 in the second set when heavy rain, which had already delayed the start of play by almost four hours on the outside courts, returned. Sharapova has warned Williams that she won't be able to push her around again if they do meet. Sharapova was overwhelmed by Williams' brutal power-hitting when they last met on the All England Club grass courts in 2005. The Russian crumbled in the second set of that semi-final and would love the chance to get revenge this year. "I felt like at that stage in my career I wasn't really ready," Sharapova said. "Sometimes I felt like I was going for a little too much when I didn't have to. Against someone like her, you don't get away with it as much. The world number two won her last match against Williams, on the hard courts in Miami this year, but admits that victory will count for nothing if they meet again at Wimbledon. "If I play her, we always have really, really tough matches but it's a Grand Slam and you try to bring up the intensity with every match," she said. You know that when you go out against her, you always have to be at you best." The only other women's third round match to be completed in the brief dry window between the downpours saw defending champion Amelie Mauresmo, the fourth seeded Frenchwoman, take just 57 minutes to dismantle the feeble challenge of Italian 28th seed Mara Santangelo 6-1, 6-2. Watched from the Royal Box by former West Indian cricket skippers Clive Lloyd and Brian Lara, who are familiar with wet English summers, Mauresmo was untroubled in her third round match which she wrapped up with an ace. Worryingly for her rivals, the 26-year-old has dropped just 10 games in three matches at the 2007 championships. Mauresmo, who goes on to face either Czech 14th seed Nicole Vaidisova or Victoria Azarenka of Belarus for a place in the quarter-finals, was delighted to have got on Centre Court. "I was glad to get it finished and put this round behind me," said Mauresmo. Despite the torrential rain, Wimbledon organisers insisted there were no plans to play on the middle Sunday, a contingency plan which has only been put into use three times in the tournament's history. "Irrespective of the amount of play on Saturday, I can confirm that we are sufficiently on schedule and that, therefore, there will be no play tomorrow, Sunday, July 1," said Ian Ritchie, the chief executive of the All England Club. The shortened programme meant that triple French Open champion Rafael Nadal and 2002 winner Lleyton Hewitt will have to return on Monday to play their third round ties.
The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.
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