Taiwan's Yen-Hsun Lu refused to let himself believe he had a chance of defeating Andy Roddick before prevailing in a thrilling five-set encounter with the American at Wimbledon.
Lu caused a major All England upset by defeating the three-time finalist 4-6 7-6 (7/3) 7-6 (7/4) 6-7 (5/7) 9-7 in the fourth round.
The hard-hitting Roddick struggled to stamp his authority on the world number 82 during the epic encounter, but Lu revealed that even as late as the deciding set he had no realistic aspirations of victory.
‘When I was going to the final set I just tell myself I have to fight, because I know in the fifth set there is no tie-break and he has better serve,’ Lu admitted.
‘So I just tell myself, if I can stay here longer, longer, longer, then probably something happens.
‘But I tell you, in the fifth set, I don't believe I can win because he's a better server than me. But I just tell myself, even if I don't believe, I have to fight.’
Fifth seed Roddick was clearly upset by the result, but gave his opponent credit.
‘I thought he served better than he has against me before,’ Roddick said.
‘But I had chances and I didn't take advantage of them.’
Lu will face Novak Djokovic in the quarter-finals on Wednesday having never previously gone past the second round at Wimbledon.
Serbian third seed Djokovic progressed after seeing off 2002 champion Lleyton Hewitt in four sets.
Hewitt, the 15th seed from Australia, was in dangerous form coming into this tournament having won the warm-up event in Halle, but had no answer as he went down 7-5 6-4 3-6 6-4.
Top seed Roger Federer enjoyed a composed afternoon in the sun as he defeated Jurgen Melzer to reach the quarter-finals.
After struggling through his opening two matches, the defending champion posted a second straight-sets win in succession as he outclassed Melzer 6-3 6-2 6-3.
The six-time champion will meet Tomas Berdych in the last eight after the Czech fought back from a set down to see off Germany's Daniel Brands 4-6 7-6 (7/1) 7-5 6-3.
Rafael Nadal eased any concerns over his fitness with a dominant victory over Paul-Henri Mathieu.
The Spaniard made it 10 wins from 10 career meetings against Mathieu with a 6-4 6-2 6-2 victory on Court One.
The Spaniard, who missed the defence of his title last year with tendinitis, said he was ‘scared’ about a flare-up of one of his knees during his win over Philipp Petzschner in the last round.
Nadal also had to call on the trainer to deal with an arm injury during the five-set encounter, but the seven-time grand slam title winner looked in peak condition in this match.
Nadal said: ‘I had [an injury] problem in the second round and a bigger one in the third, but today was much better.
‘I did not feel anything so that's very positive.’
Robin Soderling is next up for Nadal after he reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the first time at the expense of David Ferrer.
The Swede, who did not drop a set in the opening three rounds, started off in similar fashion but ninth seed Ferrer twice fought back before Soderling triumphed 6-2 5-7 6-2 3-6 7-5.
Andy Murray reeled off his fourth consecutive straight-sets win to reach the last eight.
The fourth seed did not play quite as well as he had in his opening three matches but it was still good enough for a 7-5 6-3 6-4 victory over Sam Querrey in a little over two hours.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the 10th seed, set up a meeting with Murray by winning his all-French battle with Julien Benneteau.
The 25-year-old from Le Mans reached the last eight for the first time with a 6-1 6-4 3-6 6-1 victory.
