Six-times champion Federer stunned by Berdych

Federer's overthrow, the biggest sensation of an incident-packed tournament, provided the best win of his career for the 24-year-old Berdych. He has yet to win a Grand Slam but also reached the semi-finals of the French Open earlier this month and he will no doubt have very much in the forefront of his mind the fact that his most famous compatriot, Ivan Lendl, had not won a major at the age of 24 either, but went on to capture eight Grand Slams.

Even Berdych and his coaching team would hesitate to make that sort of claim but a big win - even bigger than this one - seems well within the reach of this huge-serving man of 6ft 5in with the erect, military bearing of a Guardsman.

Perhaps most important of all for the Czech who kept drilling unreturnable groundstrokes down the lines off both wings was that he kept his nerve when the prospect of defeating the man who has won 16 Grand Slams began to look more and more on the cards.

Indifferently though he was performing, Federer is a true champion in his ability to come back from similar dire situations, as he showed in the first round when beating Alejandro Falla from two sets down.

This time there was to be no dramatic recovery to keep alive his hopes of a record-equalling seventh Wimbledon crown. Berdych's power tennis kept the pressure at boiling point and in the end it was Federer who fell apart.

As he crunched the last of his forehand winners Berdych whipped off his ever-present white cap and unleashed a rare smile on a cheering Centre Court crowd, who also had the warmest of farewells for Federer.

Though he led their career head-to-head record by eight wins to two, Federer knew well enough that on Wimbledon's fast, dry courts the power of Berdych would be a danger, and it did not take long for knowledge to be turned into fact as Berdych broke in the seventh game on a pair of Federer errors. That was all Berdych needed to capture an opening set in which Federer never reached break point.

The champion's counter-attack was mounted immediately as he surged into a 3-0 lead in the second set, mixing aces with effective employment of the drop shot to test Berdych's speed off the mark. Having served consistently well in the high 130 miles an hour range earlier, Berdych had trouble keeping that up and his second serve came in for punishment as Federer ran away with the second set and prepared to take control of the match.

It never happened. The aggressive Czech raced to a 3-0 lead of his own in the third set and kept on widening the gap, breaking again for a 5-1 lead to huge applause and closing out the set with his 11th ace.

Federer's most desperate attempt to stave off disaster came in the sixth game of the fourth set when he held, and lost, four break points after Berdych, looking edgy for the first time, showed the champion some daylight with a pair of double-faults..

Having been reprieved Berdych then broke in a long deuce game with a stunning cross-court forehand winner and he never faltered again, closing out the best win of his life on the second match point. Fittingly, it was one of those huge forehands which had been such a dominant feature of his tennis.

Source: wimbledon.org