Miscall Shadows Williams’ Loss

It was noisy out there. Venus Williams and Karolina Sprem were playing with their arms, legs and heart -- but most of all, their lungs.

They were playing with all their screeching, grunting, growling might, hitting forehands so hard they expelled air in yelps. Williams would screech at the end of a lunging volley. Sprem would howl when she retrieved that volley and smacked a backhand. The play was sometimes exhilarating, sometimes sloppy, but it was fast and frantic and, all of a sudden, too confusing for chair umpire Ted Watts.

Sprem’s raucous 7-6 (5), 7-6 (6) second-round upset Thursday of Williams, a two-time Wimbledon champion and the No. 3 seed, was punctuated by a mistake by Watts. During the fourth point in the second-set tiebreaker, he apparently quit paying attention.

With Williams leading, 2-1, Sprem served a ball out and a linesman yelled fault. Williams took a whack and returned the ball. Sprem hit it back as Williams walked to the service line. The crowd applauded and Watts announced “Two-all.”

Sprem seemed confused and served from the same court. Williams hit a winning return and Watts announced, “3-2, Williams.”

Williams and Sprem looked at Watts and at each other. Neither complained, though.

“Sometimes I do lose track of the score,” Williams said. “I don’t question a lot of calls. I just play and do my best at that point.”

Sprem said, “I was confused. I was 100% in the match. I just want to go to the next side. I didn’t think about the rest.”

It had been a breathtaking day of nonstop tennis. After losing Wednesday’s entire schedule to rain, there were only two brief interruptions and one of them saved a sentimental favorite.

With his shoulder aching and his temper bubbling, Goran Ivanisevic summoned up magic with his serve and conquered Italy’s Filippo Volandri, 4-6, 7-6 (10-8), 1-6, 6-3, 6-4, and moved into a third-round match against another former Wimbledon champion, Lleyton Hewitt.

Ivanisevic, 32, who hasn’t played here since winning the title in 2001, was down two sets to one when rain brought him into the locker room.

“A little rain came at the right time,” Ivanisevic said. “Michael Stich came to me and said, ‘Listen, I’m commentating the match. Come on, man, do something.’ And I said, ‘OK, man. I didn’t know you were commentating. Now I going to do something.’

“After I came back, that was a different me, I think, on the court. Sun was shining. I started to play much better.”

And, besides, Ivanisevic said, “You don’t want to lose on Court 2 to Volandri.”

Defending champion Roger Federer swept into the third round without breathing hard, defeating Alejandro Falla of Colombia, 6-1, 6-2, 6-0, and second-seeded Andy Roddick finally won his first-round match, beating Wang Yeu-Tzuoo of Taiwan, 6-3, 7-5, 6-4. Third-seeded Guillermo Coria also won his first-round match, on his fourth day of trying, hitting only two balls Thursday to finally send home Wesley Moodie, 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-7 (3), 6-3.

So much was happening -- Lindsay Davenport sneaking off with a 6-0, 1-0 victory over injured opponent Kristina Brandi on one court, Jennifer Capriati looking snappy in a 6-2, 6-2 win over Claudine Schaul on another, second-seeded Anastasia Myskina barely avoiding defeat with a 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 win over Aniko Kapros -- it was nearly impossible to keep up with the action, even with a scorecard.

Maybe that was Watts’ excuse.

Tournament referee Alan Mills said in a statement: “Regrettably, the chair umpire made a mistake, which ended up with the score being called wrongly. Although both players seemed perplexed, neither queried the decision.... As neither player queried the score with the chair umpire at the time, the result stands, as the mistake should have been rectified immediately.

“I will be reviewing the matter with the chair umpire in the morning.”

Overshadowed by the mistake was that Williams hasn’t won a Grand Slam title since the 2001 U.S. Open and that this was her earliest dismissal from Wimbledon in seven years.

When she was up, 6-3, in the second-set tiebreaker after Sprem had served a nervous double fault, it seemed Williams had gained control. But with Williams serving, Sprem scored on a forehand passing shot and then benefited from a Williams double fault.

Still, it seemed Williams was headed to a third set when she zeroed in on what seemed an easy forehand volley. But she pushed the volley into the bottom of the net and, on the next point, volleyed into the net again.

Clearly flustered, Williams lost her fifth straight point with a forehand error, her 27th unforced error of the match.

“It’s not a whole barrel of laughs,” Williams said. “But I’ve had some great results in this tournament since 2000. I would have loved to have done better. But it’s impossible to be a winner or finalist every year.”

Williams chose not to use the tiebreaker confusion as an excuse.

“I don’t think one call makes a match,” she said.

*

At a Glance

The fourth day of Wimbledon:

* Men’s seeded losers -- No. 14 Mardy Fish to Joachim Johansson, No. 15 Nicolas Massu to Alexander Popp, No. 33 Luis Horna to Mario Ancic.

* Women’s seeded losers -- No. 3 Venus Williams to Karolina Sprem, No. 19 Fabiola Zuluaga to Anne Kremer, No. 22 Conchita Martinez to Milagros Sequera, No. 24 Mary Pierce to Virginia Ruano Pasqual, No. 29 Dinara Safina to Arantxa Parra Santonja.

*

TODAY’S FEATURED MATCHES

Centre Court -- begins at 4 a.m. PDT

* Tim Henman (5), vs. Ivo Heuberger

* Elena Baltacha vs. Jennifer Capriati (7)

* Goran Ivanisevic vs. Lleyton Hewitt (7)

* Maria Sharapova (13) vs. Daniela Hantuchova

Court 1 -- begins at 4 a.m. PDT

* Serena Williams (1) vs. Stephanie Foretz

* Lindsay Davenport (5)vs. Tatiana Panova