Baghdatis topples Federer

Marcos Baghdatis toppled Roger Federer 5-7, 7-5, 7-6 (7/4) Tuesday, saving three match points en route to his first victory in seven tries against the Swiss world number one.

“Seven is my lucky number,” Baghdatis said after polishing off the 16-time Grand Slam champion in two hours and 22 minutes to reach the fourth round of the Indian Wells ATP Masters 1000.

He finished it off with a service winner on his first match point - after surviving a match point in the 12th game of the third set, when Federer netted a backhand.

Federer’s other two match points came at 5-4 of the second set - when he took a 15-40 lead on Baghdatis’ serve but fired first a forehand and then a backhand long and Baghdatis went on to hold serve and even the set.

Baghdatis broke Federer in the next game, the Swiss sending a forehand long to set up break point, then netting a backhand.

The last time Federer surrendered a match after holding at least one match point was in the 2006 Rome final, against Rafael Nadal.

Federer had taken a 3-1 lead in the third set with a break in the fourth game, but Baghdatis - whose head-to-head record against Federer includes a loss in the 2006 Australian Open final - broke back in the seventh game, setting up the break with a blistering cross-court winner before Federer netted a forehand.

“It was one of those matches where you play well most of the time, and don’t play well when you really have to,” said Federer, who was playing his first tournament since his Australian Open triumph. “It’s a pity.”

Andy Murray, the man who fell to Federer in the Australian Open final, booked his fourth-round berth with a straight-sets victory over unfamiliar foe Michael Russell.

World number four Murray beat the American - ranked 68th in the world - 6-3, 7-5.

But Russell, who has never reached an ATP Tour final, didn’t go quietly, breaking the Briton in the ninth game of the second set as Murray served for the match, putting the set back on serve after Murray’s early break.

“I would have liked to have won, closed it out there 3 and 3, but I did well to stay composed at the end,” said Murray, who brought it to a close when he broke Russell in the final game.

Sixth-seeded Swede Robin Soderling needed just one break of serve to post a 7-6 (7/3), 6-4 win over Spain’s Feliciano Lopez. Soderling, last year’s French Open runner-up, fired 14 aces in a dominant performance on serve as he bids for a second title of 2010 to go with the one he captured in Rotterdam.

He holds a 2-0 career record over his fourth-round opponent, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France.

Tsonga blasted 17 aces as he overcame a slow start to beat Spain’s Albert Montanes 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 win over Spaniard Albert Montanes.

Wozniacki advances

Caroline Wozniacki booked a quarter-final berth at the BNP Paribas Open Tuesday as defending champion Vera Zvonareva joined the list of former champions bowing out.

Wozniacki, the charismatic Danish teenager who is seeded second, survived a see-saw battle with Russian veteran Nadia Petrova to win 6-3, 3-6, 6-0.

Wozniacki turned up the heat in the third set, surrendering just three points on her own serve as she set up a challenging quarter-final clash with Australian Open semi-finalist Zheng Jie of China - a 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (7/1) winner over Australian Alicia Molik.

“It was a match where it just went up and down quite a bit,” Wozniacki said.

“It was not really a great rhythm there. I didn’t feel the ball very well.”

Wozniacki, who shot to prominence with her run to the US Open final last year, is the highest seed remaining after the second-round exit of top-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova.

Third-seeded Victoria Azarenka was another early casualty, along with former champions Maria Sharapova, Kim Clijsters, Justine Henin, Daniela Hantuchova and Ana Ivanovic.

Zvonareva, the last of six former winners left in the draw, was toppled by eighth-seeded Australian Samantha Stosur 6-2, 7-5.

Stosur, 25, stretched her winning streak against the Russian to four matches as she continued to improve on her previous best Indian Wells showing. She had never before made it past the third round.

Stosur, who reached her first quarter-final of the year, next meets Spain’s Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, who beat Belgian Yanina Wickmayer 6-4, 6-4.

Fourth-seeded Elena Dementieva of Russia and fifth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland lined up a quarter-final clash with no-nonsense victories over a pair of French opponents.

Dementieva beat Aravane Rezai, 6-3, 6-3 while Radwanska downed Marion Bartoli 6-3, 6-2.

Sixth-seeded Serbian Jelena Jankovic, who struggled mightily in a third-round victory over Sara Errani, turned in a strong performance in a 6-2, 6-2 triumph over Israel’s Shahar Peer.

“I think today I played real well,” Jankovic said. “I played really aggressively.

“I had a tough match last night, so I didn’t know how I was going to hold up physically. And Shahar Peer is a really dangerous opponent. She can play really, really well, and she’s a fighter.”

In the quarters, Jankovic will play Alisa Kleybanova, who beat Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro 2-6, 7-6 (7/2), 6-4

Both Jankovic and Wozniacki said it wouldn’t pay to assume the spate of upsets would make their paths easier.

“Doesn’t matter,” Jankovic said. “You still have to beat those players who are on the other side of the net. Doesn’t matter who it is. It’s never easy.

” AFP