LONDON: Stan Wawrinka became the latest star to suffer a shock exit from Queen’s Club as the French Open champion was beaten 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (13-11) by South Africa’s Kevin Anderson here on Wednesday.

Just 24 hours after Rafael Nadal’s first-round defeat against unheralded Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov, it was Wawrinka’s turn to succumb to an unexpected loss at the Wimbledon warm-up event in west London.

The Swiss second seed had swept through his first-round clash against Australian Nick Kyrgios in just 49 minutes as he looked to follow his memorable final triumph over Novak Djokovic in Paris with his first ever grass-court title.

But, in the second round, Wawrinka couldn’t find a way to subdue the big-serving Anderson, who fired down 22 aces en route to his first win over a top five ranked opponent this year.

Wawrinka had been hoping to extend his winning run to nine matches, but the towering 6ft 8in Anderson had won their last three meetings, all in 2014, and he proved a thorn in the 30-year-old’s side again.

In the quarter-final, Anderson will play either world number 79 Dolgopolov or Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.

Earlier, French seventh seed Gilles Simon ended Thanasi Kokkinakis’s emotional Queen’s Club debut with a 6-4, 6-2 second-round victory over the Australian teenager.

IVANOVIC CRASHES OUT

BIRMINGHAM: Ana Ivanovic, who won the first grass court title of her career here last year, relinquished it at the first hurdle this year when she lost to qualifier Michelle Larcher de Brito here on Wednesday.

The world number seven from Serbia gained her highest ranking for more than six years after a great French Open earlier this month, but was beaten 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (8-6) by a US-based Portuguese player ranked outside the top 100.

Ivanovic even had a chance to serve for the match at 5-4 in the final set, but saw her opponent play a superb game to break back. After that de Brito played increasingly like a player with little to lose, striking some crucially potent blows in the deciding tie-break.It was all the more a surprising result because Ivanovic appeared to have worked her way out of trouble, after the flat-hitting and ambitious 22-year-old had broken serve early and clung on to the advantage well.

After taking five games in a row from 3-3 in the second set with some forceful baseline blows, the champion appeared to be motoring to victory, but was surprised by the strength of resistance when she attempted to close it out at 5-4.

After that de Brito was dangerously aggressive most of the time, earning two match points at 6-4 in the tie-break, both of which Ivanovic saved bravely.

However she relinquished the third at 6-7 with a double fault.

Earlier, the other former world number one from Serbia, Jelena Jankovic, survived two tie-break set points against Casey Dellacqua, the world number 67 from Australia, before coming through 7-6 (13-11), 6-3.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play