TENNIS in DEPTH.

Nikolay Davydenko became the highest seed to crash out of the men’s singles at this year’s Wimbledon when he was beaten in four sets by Daniel Brands in the second round on Wednesday evening.

The seventh seed looked set for an easy ride against his 22-year-old German opponent when he won the opening set but Brands hit back to triumph 1-6, 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (10/8), 6-1.

The result does not come as a complete surprise, with Davydenko having missed

three months of the season with a wrist injury before returning to action at Halle a fortnight ago.

Brands, the world number 98, next faces Romanian 31st seed Victor Hanescu, who beat Turkey’s Marsel Ilhan 6-4 6-4 3-6 6-3.

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John McEnroe applauds the record setting match…….

John Isner and Nicolas Mahut’s epic match on Court 18 is the greatest advertisement we’ve ever had for our sport beyond the spectacle of a Wimbledon final like Roger Federer versus Rafa Nadal.

I’m so proud, I must say, to be part of this great game and see those guys perform physically.

We don’t get enough respect at times and our respect level is going to go way up because of this.

I am looking at Mahut, thinking he has played the entire day and the match has taken 10 hours, and he looks like he’s in the second or third set.

I’m amazed those guys are still standing.

Isner looks like he’s ready to fall, he’s completely done and yet he still had the will to keep this thing going.

I would love to see the game resume on Centre Court on Thursday.

It would be a sign of respect for the two of them to get out there and have a moment that the entire stadium would appreciate before Andy Murray plays.

The balance of power now sits with Mahut because he seems physically fresher.

John is running on fumes but he is also able, at his height, just to arm it and win points on his serve.

Perhaps one of the guys might not even be able to play.

They are unbelievably conditioned mentally and physically but this is going to take six months out of their careers.

I have got a feeling that they may eventually change the rules now – they should do.

This is great and wonderful, they have broken every record there is to break but there should be a limit.

I would do it at six-all in the fifth and decide on the tie-breaker because you have to win that by two.

But this is amazing for our sport.

John McEnroe was talking on BBC Two’s Today at Wimbledon

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John Isner and Nicolas Mahut tore up the record books at Wimbledon as their epic first-round contest became the longest in tennis history.

The match was locked at 59-59 in the final set after 10 hours of play when it was suspended because of bad light.

The match just went on and on and on, with no end in sight. Isner managed to find enough energy to serve, but not much else, however the serve was all he really needed.

The time of the match has demolished the previous record – a six-hour and 33-minute clash between Fabrice Santoro and Arnaud Clement at the 2004 French Open.

It has also seen both men beat the previous record for most aces in a match by one player.

Ivo Karlovic’s tally of 78 had been set during a Davis Cup tie last year, but Isner currently holds the new record with 98.

The serve-dominated contest was initially halted by fading light on Tuesday evening with the score at two sets all – 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (9/7) 6-7 (3/7) – Isner having won the fourth-set tie-break to keep the match alive.

However, that was only the start of things for the final set would last longer itself than the previous longest match ever.

With no breaks of serve since the second set, the pattern of serve domination continued.

They will return tomorrow for a third try to finish their match.

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Novak Djokovic overcame the brutal serve of Taylor Dent to ensure a welcome early conclusion to the second match of his Wimbledon campaign.

The Serbian, whose first-round match on Monday broke the record for the tournament’s latest finish, edged a tight first set that saw Dent’s power amaze the Centre Court crowd before striding clear to secure a 7-6 6-1 6-4 triumph.

Djokovic must have balked when viewing an order of play that again put him last on the show arena, after his five-set clash against Olivier Rochus ended under the closed roof at 10.58pm following almost four hours of action.

But his subtle groundstrokes came to the fore to allow the keen football fan to end his contest in less than two hours – 20 minutes before his country kicked off their decisive World Cup group game against Australia.

Ilija Bozoljac, a qualifier from Serbia ranked 152nd in the world, has given himself the nickname of ‘Bozo’ but he was in no mood for frivolity as he pushed the Swiss ace all the way in an absorbing, serve-dominated second-round match on Court One.

Federer, relegated from Centre Court for the first time for three years, triumphed 6-3 6-7 (4/7) 6-4 7-6 (7/5) and his serve was not broken throughout but it was his plucky opponent who earned most of the plaudits.

The big-serving Bozoljac hit 31 aces and 102 winners, compared to 69 by the champion, but also produced 37 unforced errors, almost three times as many as the more consistent Federer.

Andy Roddick admitted he was forced to serve and volley just to contain Michael Llodra in their tight second-round Wimbledon showdown.

Roddick recovered from losing the first set in convincing fashion to triumph 4-6 6-4 6-1 7-6 (7-2) on Centre Court, the setting for his epic defeat by Roger Federer in last year’s final.

The American fifth seed failed to win a point when being broken in the fifth game, describing Llodra’s performance as “flawless”.

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Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters moved a step closer to a last-16 meeting at Wimbledon after both won their second-round matches on Wednesday.

US Open champion Clijsters eased past Karolina Sprem 6-3 6-2 on Court One.

Fellow Belgian Henin saw off the challenge of Germany’s Kristina Barrois 6-3 7-5, but did not have it all her own way on Court Two.

The 17th seed was pegged back from 5-1 to 5-5 in the second set before recovering her poise.

Both Henin and Clijsters have highlighted their lack of a Wimbledon title as motivation for ending their retirement.

Clijsters, 27, began playing again in August last year and won the US Open for a second time in only her third tournament.

Venus Williams had no trouble defeating last week’s Eastbourne winner Ekaterina Markarova 6-0, 6-4.

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Is Maria Sharapova really back? Last week she demolished a mediocre field, but failed to win in the final against Li Na, who was the only top ten player in the field.

If she is firing on all cylinders she’s close to being unbeatable on grass, but she has no Plan B. If her service goes off she becomes just another good player, not good enough to defeat the likes of Serena, Venus, Kim or Justine.

Maria Sharapova opened her Wimbledon campaign with a 6-1 6-0 victory over Anastasia Pivovarova(who?) in an all-Russian match on Court Two on Tuesday.

Sharapova needed just 54 minutes to blast the 17-year-old from Moscow, who was playing her first career main draw match on grass, out of contention.

The 16th seed hit one ace and 14 winners and Pivovarova, making her third appearance at a Grand Slam event, had no answer to her first serve throughout a one-sided contest.

Sharapova, the 2004 Wimbledon champion, now faces Romania’s Ioana Raluca Olaru(who?) in the second round.

Sharapova feels she is back at her best following shoulder problems.

“It’s a really good feeling when you go to your job and you know that you’re pretty darn good at what you do and that you can be better, that you can be holding trophies. It makes you want to work harder,” she said.

“But I know there will always be younger girls coming up with different types of games and you have to be ready for that.

“It’s a little bit different than it was a few years ago – now you have to be ready to play against tough opponents from the first round.”

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Serena’s next outing will be on Thursday, the day The Queen makes her first visit to Wimbledon for 33 years and Serena confessed she is “almost speechless” at the prospect of playing in front of Her Majesty, adding “It is a real honour.” That match, should it be on Centre Court, will be against the Russian, Anna Chakvetadze.

Serena also confided that she has been working on her curtsey ready for a possible introduction to The Queen. “I’m definitely going to work on it a little more, I’m trying to tone down my wrist action,” she laughed.. “It’s something she’ll definitely never forget if I get the chance to meet her.”

Serena dubbed the red outfit she wore on court “Strawberries and Cream”, in honour of Wimbledon. “I thought, this year let’s do something different because I always do white and gold, since gold is one of my favourite colours. So we came up with the cream and the red.

“The red symbolises a lot of the things I do in Africa, like the red laces. Everybody that buys a pair can pretty much save a life in Africa. I wanted to tie that all together with this championship, since it means so much to me.”

On the subject of serving so well in her match (64 per cent of first serves on target and 100 per cent of first serves won) Serena revealed that she had gone home from the French Open upset “because I served so terrible in my last match there”. So, she said, “I had a talk with my serve, told it we got to do a little better.”

That fact that the Centre Court crowd had got behind the underdog, Larcher De Brito, did not bother her in the least, she claimed. “And I would have gotten behind her as well, especially now that I’m watching a lot of the [World Cup] football. I really got behind North Korea. My heart really went out to them.”

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Rafael Nadal returned to Centre Court for the first time since his 2008 triumph on Tuesday – and duly posted an expected win.

The world number one, who missed last year’s tournament due to a knee injury, was returning to the scene of his epic final victory over Roger Federer, a match which famously ended in near darkness.

In contrast, bright sunshine and temperatures of 80 degrees Fahrenheit greeted the Spaniard as he stepped out onto the famous court prior to his 6-2 6-4 6-4 victory over spirited wild card Kei Nishikori.

Andy Murray recovered from a shaky start to cruise through his first-round match against Jan Hajek in a rare appearance on Court One on Tuesday.

The British number one is more used to being centre stage at Wimbledon but it was not an extended stay on the All England Club’s second court as he dispatched his Czech opponent 7-5 6-1 6-2 in little over an hour and a half.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga made a winning return from injury at Wimbledon on Tuesday.

The 10th seed had been a doubt to appear at the All England Club after a hip injury forced him to quite his fourth-round match at the French Open.

In a battle of the big servers with Robert Kendrick – there was just one break apiece in the entire contest – the Frenchman progressed with a 7-6 (7/2) 7/6 (8/6) 3-6 6-4 win.

The first match on Court One was something of a throwback to the past, both players happy to come to the net – an area where Tsonga 25 of 28 points.

Kendrick out-aced his opponent 28 to 19 but it was Tsonga who progressed, refocusing after losing the third set.

Several other of the main seeds also moved into round two on Tuesday, Queen’s Club winner Sam Querrey leading the way.

The American progressed when opponent Sergiy Stakhovsky quit due to illness in the third set. Querrey was already two sets to the good.

Mikhail Youzhny, seeded 13, ended the hopes of Andy Roddick’s conqueror at Queen’s, Dudi Sela.

In what was always a closely-fought match, Youzhny came through a 6-3 6-4 4-6 7-6 (7/2) winner.

And ninth seed David Ferrer had no problems in dispatching German veteran Nicolas Kiefer, a quarter-finalist in SW19 way back in 1997, 6-4 6-2 6-3.

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