An irritated Patrick Rafter booked his place in the fourth round of Wimbledon by dispatching Germany's Rainer Schuettler 6-2 7-6 (7-2) 6-3 on Saturday. The twelfth seed was unhappy with the "let" machine on Court One and complained to the umpire about the accuracy of the device when he was serving at 4-3 15-0 in the final set.
Thinking the serve was incorrectly called "let" by the service-reading machine, Rafter shouted: "This is a kick serve for God's sake. Turn the bloody machine off." After the match Rafter said: "I'm deaf in one ear so I find it hard to hear the lets anyway but that serve was a big kicking serve and cleared the net by at least a metre."
"Maybe I'm missing something but the machine kept on bleeping throughout for no reason at all." Distractions aside, the dual U.S. Open champion was in commanding form during the match and claimed the opening set in just 22 minutes after breaking Schuettler twice and dropping only six points on his own serve.
The 24-year-old German fought bravely in the second set, often outclassing Rafter in the rallies, but was unable to stop Rafter from racing away with the tiebreak. "I served and volleyed well, especially on the big points and took most of the chances that came my way," said Rafter.
"I feel I have a good chance to win here. Now that i'm playing good tennis my chances are going up everyday." The Australian - a semi-finalist here last year - broke Schuettler's serve to win the match on his third matchpoint.
His next opponent will be either Thomas Johansson or Magnus Gustafsson, both unseeded and both Swedes.
Reuters
