France's Marion Bartoli took empathic revenge on Jelena Jankovic for her French Open fourth round defeat by the Serb as she dumped the third seed out of Wimbledon at the same stage.
Just a month ago, Bartoli could take no more than two games from Jankovic in Paris and for much of this match Jankovic played as if waiting for that version of Bartoli to turn up here. But the Frenchwoman is a far better player on grass than clay, and proved it on No. 1 Court by winning through to the quarter-finals 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.
Yet this was not a match with the epic quality of Jankovic’s third round victory over Lucie Safarova. There were too many service breaks for that – 15 in all – along with four rain delays.
Jankovic – the same age as her opponent at 22 - got down to work straight away, breaking Bartoli at once. But the main trend early in the match was for an extraordinary number of challenges. None met with success, and in the case of one particular Bartoli challenge, Hawk-Eye showed the ball to be so far out that she had the good grace to smile and give the thumbs-up in embarrassment. Jankovic broke again.
With the double break the match appeared to be heading the same way as last month’s French Open meeting. But Jankovic’s second serve was uncertain, and more breaks were to come. At 5-2, 30-40 the lightest of showers brought play to a halt for 10 minutes and, on their return, Bartoli converted break point, despite her weak smash. Jankovic was slipping on the damp court but nonetheless closed out the set.
But she just could not find the consistency to dominate the match. Those break points kept racking up, and at 1-1 in the second set the Frenchwoman converted one of them.
Bartoli’s style is an unusual sight, not just for her peculiar bent-wrist service grip and action, but also because she plays two-handed on both sides. But it was proving to be effective enough to stay in the match.
Jankovic, meanwhile, was calling for the trainer, telling umpire Eva Asderaki that she had something in her left eye. Although it was not clear what it was, she certainly seemed to be affected by it.
Bartoli broke for 3-2 and broke again with a lovely drop shot for 5-2. But she could not take either of her chances to serve out the set. Jankovic fought back but at 5-5 she found herself once again at 0-40 on her serve – which was when the light rain infuriatingly came again, giving her the chance to regroup and get that troublesome eye seen to.
Twenty minutes later, the players were back on court. Bartoli completed the break, and this time finished the job to take the match into a deciding set.
Only five minutes had passed when the rain started pattering again, and they were off. One hour later and they were back trading breaks and break points. It didn’t last. With Bartoli at 2-3, 30-15 the fourth rain break came.
It wasn't long before they were back again, resuming their strange pattern of play, with Jankovic loudly chastising herself for squandering chance after chance. When Bartoli broke for 4-3 it seemed certain Jankovic would break right back, but this time, when it mattered the most, the Serbian had no answer. Bartoli was through.
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