• Wimbledon: Plays of the Day

Serena in contol after 'Withdrawal Wednesday'

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was left red-faced when a showboat went wrong © PA Photos

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Wimbledon 2013

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Withdrawal Wednesday

A simply astonishing day at Wimbledon which saw no fewer than seven players withdraw either before or during their match.

And it looked set to be eight when Maria Sharapova received lengthy treatment from the trainers after a slipping on a court that she called "dangerous". The Russian was at least gracious enough to get up and allow Michelle Larcher de Brito to close out victory over the former champion.

Serena laughing

With second and third seeds Victoria Azarenka and Sharapova by the wayside, Serena Williams will be sitting in her Wimbledon hotel room rubbing her hands together. We have not checked the odds yet, but we imagine the American is around 1000/1 on…

The birth of a new crowd favourite

Lleyton Hewitt is always fun to watch and the boisterous Australian knows how to put on a show for the Wimbledon crowds who love him so dearly.

But Hewitt may have met his match in Dustin Brown - the giant Jamaican who turned down Great Britain to represent birth nation Germany.

At six-feet-five and sporting a flamboyant display of dreadlocked hair, Brown's bouncy court antics are not what you would expect. But the 28-year-old wedged himself firmly in the hearts of the SW19 faithful with a diving first set point winner of which compatriot Boris Becker would have been proud.

Roger Federer's offensive shoes © PA Photos

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Related Links

• Features: A lot of unhappy voices on 'Withdrawal Wednesday'
  
• News: Federer floored by super Stakhovsky
  
• News: Flawless Murray cruises past Lu
  
• News: Hewitt upset by giant German Brown
  
• News: Sharapova stumbles to shock defeat
  
• Profile: Roger Federer | Lleyton Hewitt | Maria Sharapova | Jo-Wilfried Tsonga | Serena Williams

Tsonga's showboat hits the rocks

Before injury forced him to become one of the fallen seven, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had a rather embarrassing moment when, faced with a set point, he attempted to showboat his way to a point with opponent Ernests Gulbis on the ground. He could not quite pull it off, however, and Gulbis recovered to flick the ball back past the Frenchman to tie the match at 1-1. Tsonga struggled to hide his blushes.

Federer hit by the fashion police

We are traditionalists here at ESPN Towers, and we are in full support of Wimbledon's insistence that players wear all white. But banning Roger Federer's orange-soled shoes was just a tad too far, for us.

Sharapova and friends wear shorts under their white skirts of various vibrant colour schemes, but they are allowed as they are considered "undergarments". We cannot see a lot of difference.

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