Second seed Safin crashes out

Olivier Rochus’ plan to make Marat Safin ‘‘get crazy’’ paid off in style as he sent the second seed crashing out of Wimbledon.

The tiny Belgian won in four sets on Centre Court, and revealed how his pre-match tactics were to wind up the Russian who - at 6ft 4in - held an 11 inch height advantage.

‘‘I knew Marat sometimes gets nervous,’’ he explained, ‘‘so I knew I had to play every point and that maybe some games he will give me because he will get crazy.

‘‘I just stayed focused, tried to play every ball the same and fight.’’

While Belgium has produced Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters, no Belgian man has yet made a big impact on the ATP tour.

Rochus wandered into the press room with his phone constantly beeping with congratulatory text messages.

His brother Christophe, who he had knocked out in the first round, was among the senders.

Rochus told reporters what he had texted, revealing: ‘‘He said: ‘‘It was great, just keep going. It’s not finished.’’

Rochus, a junior semi-finalist five years ago and now 22, who ranked today’s win as his career highlight, added: ‘‘Wimbledon brings me luck. My best win before was Magnus Norman - also here. I should play here every week.

‘‘When I saw the draw, I said that they killed the tournament. To play my brother, it was the worst draw ever. So I was not really happy when I came here. Now maybe I’m the happiest man on earth.’’

Safin says he will learn to play Wimbledon one day, but as he headed for the exit gates the towering Muscovite admitted that pressure to keep his temper was killing his chances at the All England Club.

He conceded that Wimbledon’s traditions were hindering his performances.

‘‘Starting from having to wear white clothes and be nice and polite, and not hitting your racquet - for some people that’s nice,’’ he said. ‘‘You have to be polite and all these things.

‘‘For us, the people who are a little bit more emotional on court like me, it difficult to be quiet because you need to get upset - it helps you sometimes to come back.

‘‘But it’s OK, I will learn one day.’’

The pair looked mismatched as they walked onto court, with Safin a 6ft 4in giant and Rochus just 5ft 5in.

But Rochus, defeated only last month by Safin at the French Open, rose to the challenge and finished a 6-2 6-4 3-6 7-6 (7-1) winner.

It was David and Goliath stuff and enthralling tennis, with Rochus frustrating Safin into submission.

He made hardly any unforced errors in the opening two sets, playing flawlessly to take a firm grip on the match.

And he would not be flustered by Safin working his way back into contention by taking the third.

Safin’s cool cracked in the fourth set as he lost his temper with umpire Javier Moreno-Perez after a call was overruled at a crucial point, and the tie-break was one-way traffic.

Size is no longer an issue in professional tennis, according to Safin.

‘‘Short, long, big, fat, whatever,’’ he said, ‘‘everybody can play. Any player can beat any player.

‘‘If you lose, OK, ‘thank you very much, you were better than me today. Well done, good luck for the rest of the tournament’.

‘‘I couldn’t find my game today from the beginning of the match. Whatever I did, it was wrong.

‘‘He (Rochus) has beautiful hands, he has beautiful touch. You cannot just come on the court and say: ‘You are small, I am big, I have to win’.’’