Federer beaten in Wimbledon second round

LONDON, June 26 (UPI) -- Defending champion Roger Federer was beaten in four sets Wednesday, the biggest upset in a day of unexpected results and injuries at Wimbledon.

Federer was ousted in the second round by Sergiy Stakhovsky 6-7 (5-7), 7-6 (7-5), 7-5, 7-6 (7-5), suffering his earliest defeat at a major tournament since the 2003 French Open. His streak of 36 consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinals appearances also ends.

Federer was seeking a record eighth Wimbledon title but never was able to get a real advantage against Stakhovsky, who had never before beaten a Top 10 player. Federer had just one break on the day and that erased a fourth-set deficit. Stakhovsky held form there and claimed the fourth-set tiebreaker when a Federer backhand landed wide left.

Injuries grabbed attention earlier in the day, with five players either unable to report to play or forced to retire. Among that group were sixth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and No. 10 Marin Cilic.

Ernests Gulbis had pulled ahead of Tsonga 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 but Tsonga couldn't come out for the fourth set because of a knee problem. Gulbis thus advanced for the first time to the third round at Wimbledon.

Cilic was unable to make the court Wednesday, putting Kenny de Schepper into the third round. Cilic reported a left knee injury.

Steve Darcis, who pulled off the first-round upset of fifth-seeded Rafael Nadal, was unable to play Wednesday because of a shoulder problem, lifting Lukasz Kubot into the third round.

No. 18-seeded John Isner landed oddly on a serve, hurting his left knee, and pulled out of his match. He was tied 1-1 with Adrian Mannarino at the time. No. 24th-seeded Jerzy Janowicz was up 6-2, 5-3 on Radek Stepanek when Stepanek was unable to play due to a thigh problem.

Almost lost in the drama was second-seeded Andy Murray's 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 win over Lu Yen-Hsun. Murray didn't drop his serve and just 14 unforced errors against 41 winners. He goes to the third round against No. 32-seeded Tommy Robredo, who took a three-set win from Nicolas Mahut.

Fernando Verdasco edged 31st-seeded Julien Benneteau 7-6 (7-1), 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 in the day's other upset.

No. 15-seeded Nicolas Almagro stropped Guillaume Rufin in four sets and other seeded players advancing to the third round were No. 20 Mikhail Youzhny, 22nd-seeded Juan Monaco and 25th-seeded Benoit Paire.

Unseeded second-round winners Wednesday included Dustin Brown, Viktor Troicki and Jurgen Melzer.