Tennis – French Open: Four-times champion Rafael Nadal was knocked out in the fourth round of the French Open, beaten 6-2 6-7 6-4 7-6 by Sweden's Robin Soderling. The world number one had taken a 31-0 record into the contest as he had not lost a match at Roland Garros since his debut at the claycourt grand slam in 2005.
But Soderling paid little attention to the script as he brought the world number one down on his knees to cause one of the biggest shocks ever seen in Paris.
"I told myself this is just another match," said the jubilant Soderling. "All the time, I was trying to play as if it was a training session. When I was 4-1 up in the tiebreak, I started to believe."
Six-times grand slam champion Nadal looked weary on Centre Court, losing the first set in 34 minutes before rallying back to win the second in a tiebreak 7-2.
It was not enough to break Soderling's resilience as the 23rd-seeded Swede broke once in the third to take the lead and snatched the fourth set tiebreak 7-2, wrapping up the win after three hours 30 minutes on his second match point.
Andy Murray, meanwhile, set his sights on matching Tim Henman’s 2004 semi-final appearance after powering through to the last eight.
The 22-year-old became only the third British man to make the quarter-finals in the Open era here, after Roger Taylor in 1973 and Henman five years ago, thanks to his 7-5 7-6 (7/4) 6-1 over 13th seed Marin Cilic.
Murray is proud to be in such company but is not planning to stop there.
“Every time you do something like this, it’s nice,” said the British number one. “Tim obviously made the semis here and it would be nice to try to match that. I always felt I could play well on clay. I just needed a bit of time to find my game.”
The Scot, who could hardly find fault with his superbly consistent performance against Cilic, plays Fernando Gonzalez in the quarter-finals.
On a bad day for champions, Ana Ivanovic surrendered her women's crown without much of a fight when she was totally outclassed in the fourth round by Belarussian teenager Victoria Azarenkaa.
The 19-year-old Azarenka has been rising up the ranks steadily and she finally announced her arrival on the big stage when she condemned the Serbian eighth seed to a 6-2 6-3 defeat.
As Ivanovic bid an early farewell to Roland Garros, 19-year-old Azarenka set up a quarter-final date with champion-in-waiting Dinara Safina.
The Russian top seed's headlong charge towards a maiden grand slam title showed no sign of running out of steam as she flattened Aravane Rezai 6-1 6-0.