Top Seed Ivanovic Loses at Wimbledon

WIMBLEDON, England, June 27 -- One day after Maria Sharapova's stunning second-round defeat, Wimbledon bid farewell to top-seeded Ana Ivanovic, the recently crowned world No. 1, who suffered an upset of equal proportions.

Like Sharapova, the 20-year-old Ivanovic showed up for an early-round match Friday decidedly off form, lacking the timing, confidence and quick-footedness that's required to do well on grass courts. And China's Zheng Jie took quick advantage, engineering a 6-1, 6-4 victory by blasting powerful groundstrokes past the sub-par Serb, careful to keep the balls low and aimed at her backhand.

Zheng, ranked 133rd in the world, confessed later that she had watched Ivanovic flirt with defeat in her second-round match on Wednesday and realized then that she had a chance to beat the French Open champion.

"I didn't believe I could win [in] two sets," Zheng said, marveling at the efficiency of her 74-minute victory.

Ivanovic didn't hesitate to state the obvious afterward: Zheng was the better player.

"It's not easy to lose," Ivanovic said with a smile. "But you also have to realize that the world won't end. These things make you learn that you still have room to improve. Sometimes you need a punch to realize what you have to work on."

Also Friday, the last American man in the tournament, former Vanderbilt standout Bobby Reynolds, 25, fell to Feliciano López of Spain, 6-4, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.

Twelve American men entered Wimbledon this year, but none made it past the third round -- most notably Andy Roddick, a two-time finalist, and ninth-seeded James Blake. Both were upset in the second round.

The 102nd-ranked Reynolds declined to draw sweeping inferences from the worst Wimbledon performance by American men since the Open era dawned in 1968. But the topic generated considerable buzz on the grounds of the All England club on Friday.

"What has happened with the Americans?" mused three-time Wimbledon champion Boris Becker, now a tennis commentator for the BBC. His partner in the broadcast booth, former British No. 1 Tim Henman, suggested that American tennis players and fans alike "have been a bit spoiled over the years."

Five-time defending Wimbledon champion Roger Federer, who eased into the fourth round with a 6-3, 6-3, 6-1 romp over Marc Gicquel of France, was also asked about the Americans' performance and said simply that he was far more stunned by Roddick's early exit than Blake's, given their respective records on grass.