Janko Tipsarevic Wins as Only Remaining Seed in Eastbourne
Only one seeded player remains at Eastbourne on Wednesday.
He may have been a grass court finalist last week, but on Wednesday, first-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was routed by World No. 57 Radek Stepanek in 59 minutes, 6-2, 6-3.
Stepanek was able to break the Frenchman four times and won 80 percent of his first serves.
Tsonga seemed lethargic and struggled with his return game, winning only 13 of 46 points on the return.
The Frenchman admitted his mind is on Wimbledon.
"I've played a lot of matches. That was my goal for this preparation. Today, you know, I'm just tired, but I'm sure I will recover enough to play Wimbledon and to be ready," Tsonga said to the Associated Press.
The World No. 19 will be seeded 12th at SW19 next week.
Another top seed fell, as fourth-seeded Kevin Anderson of South Africa was ousted by Grigor Dimitrov in an hour, 6-3, 6-2.
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Dimitrov was able to match Anderson's big serves with strong serves of his own. He hit eight aces and won 23 of 27 first-serve points. He never gave Anderson a break point opportunity.
Third-seeded Janko Tipsarevic stayed in the draw and played one and a half matches today.
He won his match against British hopeful James Ward, 6-3, 4-6, 6-2. He started the quarterfinal match against Mikhail Kukushkin at 2-1, but the match was postponed because of rain.
Kei Nishikori's match against Rainer Schuettler was also delayed at 3-2. Olivier Rochus and Carlos Berlocq's match was suspended after they split sets.
Tipsarevic will be the 23rd seed at Wimbledon, even though he is ranked 30th in the world.
He received a bump in the seeding order because he reached the final of the UNICEF Open last year.
The other winners included Andreas Seppi of Italy, Julien Benneteau of France and Igor Kunitsyn of Russia.
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