(Updates with detail, later games and play called off)
By Clare Lovell
LONDON, June 14 - Three-times former champion Andy
Roddick had a bumpy ride into the quarter-finals at Queen's on
Thursday, pushed all the way on his favoured grass surface by
British wildcard Alex Bogdanovic.
The world number five looked the lesser player for much of
the contest that he eventually won 4-6 7-6 6-4.
"I was lucky to get out of it today," he said.
Bogdanovic, ranked 117 in the world, rattled Roddick by
finding the lines on both sides of the court and wrong-footing
the American with a powerful backhand.
Bogdanovic broke the famous Roddick serve in the third game
and clung on to his lead to take the first set with two big
serves of his own.
The pair looked evenly matched throughout the second set
with Bogdanovic, 23, saving a set point in the 10th game.
He took the 24-year-old American to the brink in the
tiebreak and, but for a challenged line call, would have had
match point.
Roddick called for the new Hawkeye technology to track his
shot that was called out at 5-5 and it found the ball had in
fact clipped the line.
BIG SUPPORTER
I'm a big supporter of Hawkeye... There's a big difference
between being down match point and up set point," Roddick said.
The second seed took the tiebreak 7-5. Although he expected
to feel more in command on grass after his humiliating
first-round exit at the French Open on clay earlier this month,
it was not until the seventh game of the third set that he broke
the British number three's serve.
Roddick meets another wildcard, Croat Marin Cilic in the
quarter-finals. Cilic, 18, the top junior in the world last
year, overcame French qualifier Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, second-round
victor over defending champion Lleyton Hewitt, 4-6 6-3 6-2.
Top seed and French Open champion Rafael Nadal was on the
brink of winning his third-round match when the rain came down
and play was called off. He was leading Belarussian Max Mirnyi
7-6 5-3 and about to serve.
Third seed Fernando Gonzalez of Chile advanced stealthily
early in the day, beating American Robby Ginepri 6-2 7-5.
Though he commands none of the headlines Nadal and Roddick,
the Australian Open runner-up, ranked sixth in the world, has
some grasscourt pedigree having reached the quarter-finals here
last year and at Wimbledon in 2005.
Eighth seed Marat Safin went out 7-6 7-6 to Ivo Karlovic,
the 2.08 metre-tall Croat who comes into his own on grass where
he slams down big serves.