Rafael Nadal's Wimbledon campaign is over following a dramatic fourth-round loss to 34-year-old world No26 Gilles Muller.
The newly-crowned 10-time French Open champion and world No2 hadn't dropped a set - let alone a match - in two months before falling 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 15-13 to Luxembourg's daring left-handedserve-volleyer in a match that lasted 12 minutes shy of five hours.
An inspired Muller blasted 30 aces and 95 winners to stun fans at the All England Club and reach just the second grand slam quarter-final of his 13-year career.
Muller, who will next play Croatian Marin Cilic, could barely believe he'd taken out one of the game's all-time greats.
"It's a great feeling to be winning that match. At the end, it was just a big battle," the journeyman said. "I haven't realised what's happened. I'm just glad it's over and I'm in the quarter-finals."
The epic finished just after 8.30pm and Muller admitted he thought he'd need to come back in the morning to complete it when Nadal fought back from two sets down and staved off four match points in the tension-filled fifth set. In extraordinary scenes, the chair umpire even asked fans in the back row of the arena to stand up to shield a reflection from the setting sun that was bothering Nadal as he went to serve to stay in the match at 10-11.
But there was no denying Muller as he finally prevailed on his fifth match point to join Lleyton Hewitt and Roger Federer as the only men to have conquered the 15-times major winner twice at the same grand slam event.
TV footage caught Nadal hitting his head on the roof with his energetic pre-match jumping but the warm-up mishap didn't hurt half as much as his fifth straight defeat before the quarter-finals on London's hallowed grass, since losing the 2011 title match to Novak Djokovic.
"I lost in the fourth round. That's not the result that I was expecting," Nadal said after falling short in his bid to complete the third French Open-Wimbledon double of his career.
"I didn't want to lose that match. So it is tough to analyse that in a positive way right now. I played better than other years, true. At the same time I was ready for important things, so I lost an opportunity."
Nadal praised Muller and vowed to return next year in pursuit of a third title
"I was there, fought until the last ball, with the right attitude. Probably was not my best match, but at the same time I played against a very uncomfortable opponent," he said.
"I want to come back because I want to play more times on the centre court."
