Roddick, Blake lose at Wimbledon

WIMBLEDON, England, June 26 (UPI) -- Americans Andy Roddick and James Blake were knocked out of The Championships during second-round play Thursday at Wimbledon.

The four-set upset of Roddick, seeded sixth, and the ninth-seeded Blake's five-set loss means five of the top nine seeds are out of the Wimbledon men's draw. Even world No. 2 Rafael Nadal had problems before putting away his second-round win.

Nadal opened the day's dramatics by losing the first set to Ernests Gulbis before getting a 5-7, 6-2, 7-6 (7-2), 6-3 win that took nearly three hours.

Roddick was ousted, 6-7 (5-7), 7-5, 6-4, 7-6 (7-4), by Janko Tipsarevic. Roddick fired 27 aces in the match but Tipsarevic broke Roddick's serve twice and didn't lose a game on serve.

Blake's fifth-set issues resurfaced. He won two of the first three sets before Rainer Schuettler finished off the 6-3, 6-7 (8-10), 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 decision. Blake is 3-11 in fifth sets in his career.

Eighth-seeded Richard Gasquet advanced on a walkover and Andy Murray, seeded 12th, posted an easy 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 win over Xavier Malisse. He draws Tommy Haas in the third round. Haas advanced Thursday with a 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 upset of 23rd seeded Tommy Robredo.

Also, No. 14-Paul-Henri Mathieu topped Jeremy Chardy, 6-3, 7-5 7-6 (7-1) and 16th-seeded Radek Stepanek lost the first two sets but won, 6-7, (1-7), 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 6-1, 6-2, over Viktor Troicki.

Other winners were No. 17 Mikhail Youzhny, No. 25 Dmitry Tursunov and 27th-seeded Nicolas Kiefer, who earned a third-round shot at Nadal with a 6-0, 6-3, 6-1 rout of Martin Vassallo Arguello. Marin Cilic, Jurgen Melzer and Arnaud Clement also claimed wins Thursday.