Wimbledon: Philippoussis ends Henmania
Tuesday, 4 July 2000 18:06Wimbledon will be a much quieter place today after Mark Philippoussis put an end to 'Henmania' for another year. The big serving Australian silenced the crowd by serving four aces to take the deciding game.
Philippoussis had come through the longest one-day match in Wimbledon history on Saturday and could have been forgiven for flagging, as Henman took the initiative. But to his credit the 23-year-old dug deep to fight back, breaking for a 4-2 lead before taking the fourth set 6-3 to set up another climactic decider. The final score was 6-1 5-7 6-7 6-3 6-4.
Top seed and reigning champion Pete Sampras beat Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden 6-3 6-2 7-5 while the Ninth seed Thomas Enqvist was beaten 3-1 by American Jan-Michael Gambill. Andre Agassi had a straight sets victory over Germany's David Prinosil.
Meanwhile, in the ladies' competition Martina Hingis breezed into the women's quarter-finals. The top seed needed just 51 minutes to defeat 11th seed Anke Huber of Germany 6-1 6-2 on court one and set up a clash with Venus Williams. Venus's sister, the eighth seeded Serena Williams, beat Tamarine Tana-Sugarn 6-1 6-1 to make the last 8. Sixth seed Monica Seles advanced to the quarter-finals with a straight-sets win over Spain's Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario while the defending champion Lyndsay Davenport was also a straight sets winner over Jennifer Capriati.
