Sharapova Cruises, Mirza Loses, Nadal v Hewitt at Queens

Tursunov will next face Tim Henman, who he beat last year at Wimbledon, after the four-time All England Club semifinalist dismissed Nicolas Mahut in straight sets to gain the quarters.

"If I go out and play the way I have been, I think I've got a good chance of beating him," Henman said of Tursunov. "I do feel very confident about the way things have been going."

The only upset in doubles action Thursday were American wildcards James Blake and Mardy Fish surprising former Wimbledon champs and No. 5 seeds Stephen Huss and Weslie Moodie 6-4, 7-6(5).

Friday's quarterfinal line-up is (15) Tursunov vs. Henman, (1) Nadal vs. (8) Hewitt, (6) Gonzalez vs. (3) Roddick, and (5) Blake vs. (13) Monfils.

Nadal sees his match with Hewitt as more ways than one to improve his grasscourt acumen.

"It's very good for my confidence for Wimbledon," Nadal said. "Tomorrow I will play against one very good player on grass, so I will see his game. That's important for me to improve on grass. He plays not too much different to me but he also plays very well on this surface. So I need to see him so I can try to imitate him a little bit."

Federer Almost Blows Gasquet at ATP Halle

World No. 1 Roger Federer continued to do anything but dominate in his second grasscourt match of the season Thursday at the ATP stop in Halle, turning back a stern challenge from former Nottingham grasscourt winner Richard Gasquet, advancing into the quarterfinals after a 7-6(7), 6-7(7), 6-4 win.

"It was very close," said Federer who made a total of 41 unforced errors. "It was played on a few points. It was a grasscourt match played from the baseline, and that was difficult for me."

Other seeds into the quarters were (5) Tomas Berdych (d. Novak in three), (6) Tommy Haas (d. Seppi), and (7) Olivier Rochus (d. Safin from a set down 6-1 in the third).

"I was a little bit scared, a little bit tense on the break points in the second set," Safin said. "Then the match slipped away. I should have been a little more aggressive."

Two unseeded players also advanced into the quarters Thursday in Frenchman Fabrice "The Magician" Santoro (d. Clement) and Swede Robin Soderling (d. Pavel from a set down 6-0 in the third).

Friday's quarterfinal match-ups are (5) Berdych vs. The Magician, (1) Federer vs. (7) Olivier "The Roach" Rochus, Soderling vs. (6) Haas, and (8) Vliegen vs. Mayer.

Miserable Mirza Falls to Qualifier at WTA Birmingham

Hyped unstoppably by the media last year as the first women's tennis star to come out of India, Sania Mirza's shine continues to fade in 2006, with various injuries and "growing pains," according to her handlers, in danger of dragging the media darling outside the Top 50 on the WTA Rankings.

On Thursday at the WTA stop in Birmingham, the No. 14-seeded Mirza failed to close a one-set lead in a 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(3) loss to No. 135-ranked unheralded American qualifier Meilen Tu.

The miserable Mirza refused to meet with the press after the match according to wire correspondents, instead issuing a press release.

"I'm really disappointed to lose today," the release said. "I thought I had the match in my hands as I started off so well but I wasn't feeling well in the second set. I had cramps and it went wrong from there. All credit to Meilen, she really hung in there and deserved to win today."

Both players were distracted by loud fans watching a video screen of World Cup action nearby, with Mirza twice failing to serve out the match in the third set.

No. 1 Maria Sharapova (d. (13) Li) led the seeds into the quarterfinals, joined by (2) Francesca Schiavone (d. Pironkova 6-1 in the third), (4) Elena Likhovtseva (d. Raymond), (6) Marion Bartoli (d. Morita in three), and (12) Mara Santangelo (d. (5) Sugiyama).

Russian Vera Zvonareva was another un-seed into the quarters, straight-setting No. 7-seeded countrywoman Anna Chakvetadze, while unseeded American Jamea "Action" Jackson toppled (8) Jelena Jankovic after dropping the second set 0-6.

Friday's line-up for the quarterfinals is Bartoli vs. Tu, Zvonareva vs. Schiavone, Sharapova vs. Santangelo, and Likhovtseva vs. Jackson.

DAILY TENNIS-X E-NEWSLETTER
Who cares if you need it or not, show your love for Tennis-X, contribute to the fund, only eight bucks for one year of daily tennis news! Pay as you go! Read what tennis industry insiders read each morning to get their heads around the latest news, insight and opinion on pro tennis. A year's subscription costs less than a meal and a pint. Get the Tennis-X Daily Dish in your e-mail in-box, even before it's posted on the web, by signing up for the net's most complete daily e-newsletter at http://www.tennis-x.com/subscribe.php

TENNIS-X NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARB
On Friday morning The Tennis Channel begins its live coverage of Queen's...Seven months into his retirement, Wayne Black is back this week unannounced playing doubles at Queen's...Marcos Baghdatis has taken a wildcard for Newport...Mats Wilander says that, after the French final, Roger Federer is not all that and a bag of chips like everybody thinks: "I think Roger Federer, today, unfortunately came out with no balls. He should have realized in the second set, surely, after two games, 'Wow I'm not hitting the ball quite as well, let me try going back to the game plan,' which surely couldn't have been staying at the baseline as much as he did...So I think he choked from the first point to the last point because I don't believe that he thinks he can beat [Rafael] Nadal from the baseline. I can't imagine that. Because if he can't beat him from the baseline on hardcourts, then he sure as hell can't beat him from the baseline on clay. That's crazy...Everybody says Federer is too good, and he is too good, but they don't have the balls that Nadal has to say, 'Listen, if you play like that throughout the whole match, then it's true, you are the greatest player ever...but if you're not the greatest player in the world, then you're not going to be able to keep that up.' He's not the best player ever, by a long shot, yet. You face him against the likes of Jimmy Connors and I don't know that he's going to beat Jimmy Connors for two reasons here (Wilander points to groin)...Sports is about balls and about heart and you don't find too many champions in any sport in the world without heart or balls. He might have them, but against Nadal they shrink to a very small size and it's not once, it's every time." -- Wow, have another pint Mats...From the AP: "Ratings for the French Open men's final between Rafal Nadal and Roger Federer were up slightly from last year's championship match. Nadal's four-set victory Sunday over Federer, who was trying to win his fourth straight Grand Slam event and first French Open title, drew a 2.1 rating on NBC. Approximately, 1.6 million households watched Nadal win at Roland Garros for the second consecutive year. The Spaniard's 2005 four-set victory over Mariano Puerta drew a 2.0 rating for NBC."...From The Guardian: "John Barrett, the BBC's Wimbledon commentator for 35 years, will be stepping down after this summer's championship. Barrett, who replaced the late Dan Maskell as the principal BBC commentator after Maskell's death in 1992, has let it be known that this will be his last Wimbledon. Barrett, who turned 75 this year, is a former tennis professional who played in every Wimbledon between 1950 and 1970. The news of his departure was slipped into the BBC's Wimbledon press pack."...Why is Peter Bodo's blog for Tennis.com suddenly coming up "This page cannot be found"?...The Times Online on Russian Dmitry Tursunov against their boy Tim Henman: "Did Tursunov look for Henman's name in the draw? "I'm not that mean," he said. Except that he is. He rarely sweats, he ignores bad shots and refocuses, he has a short, brutally efficient serve and clubs the skin off the ball. "It's a fine line between recklessness and playing too much percentage tennis," he said. "Certain people have to abide by percentages because their game dictates that they play like that. My game is based on hitting the ball, going for my shots." -- You and Sania Mirza should start a club...Can there be more of a statement of the current wanna-be-hardcourt state of grasscourt tennis than Tim Henman wanting to serve and volley less than 50 percent of the time? What the hell are you Brits doing to your grasscourts these days?...Maria Sharapova playing in Birmingham, England during the World Cup: "I barely saw any men out there. They were all in the pub drinking their beer." -- World Cup turns the world as it should be.