Manta Keeps His Nerve in the ‘Graveyard’

The reputation of Court 2 meant one thing to Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands before his match Saturday against Lorenzo Manta of Switzerland. It took on a new meaning by the end of their third-round match.

“For me the reputation why it’s called the graveyard is they’ve been digging it or something,” Krajicek said. “There’s a lot of worse bounces, but apparently also they call it the graveyard because some matches have been lost by big players.”

Add the 1996 Wimbledon champion Krajicek to that long list. Manta defeated the fifth-seeded Krajicek, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5), 4-6, 4-6, 6-4, and afterward buried his face in his towel in joy. Or maybe it was shock.

Manta, ranked 196th, had never won a match on the main tour before Wimbledon. And the 24-year-old has been riddled with injuries.

“There was once a point where I was thinking about it,” he said of quitting. “But I always felt that I could do better than that. . . . And I always believed that I could play well. It’s nice that it happened at Wimbledon.”

Said Krajicek: “At the end I was surprised at how well he played because I expected him actually to get a little bit nervous, but he just started playing better and better.”

That was not the only surprising men’s result. Wayne Arthurs of Australia, ranked in the 1,000s a couple of years ago, reached the third round and has not had his serve broken once.

He defeated 14th-seeded Tommy Haas of Germany, 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-2), and will play fourth-seeded Andre Agassi in the fourth round.

“That’s right. I refuse to be broken. It’s my goal,” said Arthurs, who is ranked 163rd.

Boris Becker of Germany kept moving through the draw, surviving a spirited test against Lleyton Hewitt of Australia, 6-1, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5), in two hours.

Hewitt spoke about how Becker could play so well after missing so much time on the tour. Becker decided to return to Wimbledon for one last shot, even though he said he was leaving grass-court tennis behind two years ago.

“He’s one of the greatest players ever to have played the game, I suppose, and there could only be two or three players in history who could do that, and he’s obviously one of them, “ Hewitt said.

Becker, a three-time Wimbledon champion, has a lot of fight left in him.

“That is the attitude I have, I’m going out there, exactly the attitude of having to decide to stay a couple more days here and giving my opponent the match of his life,” he said. “With that attitude, it probably explains why I was able to produce that kind of tennis in back-to-back matches.”