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LONDON - Fourth seed Amelie Mauresmo could not get off centre court quick enough when her reign as Wimbledon champion came to an inglorious end on a day of thunderclaps and cloudbursts.
The Frenchwoman's hopes of retaining her precious title disappeared yesterday when 18-year-old Czech Nicole Vaidisova beat her 7-6, 4-6, 6-1.
If the final two shots of her 2007 campaign, two woeful slices into the bottom of the net, were anything to go by she had long since stopped caring.
Maybe she just wanted to get away from the rain that has left the soggy championships nearly 200 matches behind schedule with five days to go.
When play ended just before 7.30pm two men's third round matches were still incomplete, while the women's fourth round clash of champions between Maria Sharapova and Venus Williams had managed just three points out on court three.
Men's second seed Rafael Nadal was locked at 4-4 in the fifth set against Swede Robin Soderling with the Spaniard facing playing every day if he is to reach the final again.
The Spaniard and Soderling first walked on court on Sunday and their match is still in the balance.
Novak Djokovic and Nicolas Kiefer were level at one set all.
One day after a hobbling Serena Williams screamed, cried and snarled her way to a remarkable fourth round victory over Daniela Hantuchova, Mauresmo folded in startling fashion.
She was leading Vaidisova 4-2 in the first set when rain first intervened and, when they returned, Mauresmo squandered three set points in the tiebreak before losing the first set.
Mauresmo was 4-2 up in the second when rain descended again, but this time she returned to level the match.
Her game simply fell apart in the decider. The red mist had descended long before she thrashed a ball to the far flung corners of the All England Club after a fluffed volley at the start of the final game.
"Everything went wrong today," said Mauresmo, 27, who served 14 double faults. "It was a shitty match."
Umpire Kim Craven's day was not much better. At the start of the second set he forgot who was serving and from what end and eventually had to be helped out by a ballboy.
At least Vaidisova kept her wits about her to reach the quarter-finals for the first time where she will meet French Open runner-up Ana Ivanovic.
It was left to the lesser known Marion Bartoli to keep French hopes alive in the women's draw when she came from behind to beat third seed Jelena Jankovic 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.
In women's fourth round matches postponed from the previous day there were mixed fortunes for the Russians.
Fifth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova beat Austrian 16-year-old Tamira Paszek 6-3, 6-2 but Nadia Petrova lost to Serbian sixth seed Ivanovic.
A few men escaped the chaos in the bottom half of the draw.
Aussie Lleyton Hewitt, 2002 champion, dislodged Argentine Guillermo Canas 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 after they had been one set apiece overnight.
Russian sixth seed Nikolay Davydenko also reached the fourth round when he finished off Frenchman Gael Monfils 6-3, 7-5, 6-3.
Spain's Juan Carlos Ferrero seized his chance to reach the quarter-finals for the first time. The 20th seed beat Janko Tipsarevic, of Serbia, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6.
He next faces Roger Federer, who has sat out the last few days after being handed a walkover by the injured Tommy Haas.
- REUTERS