Roddick through to quarter finals

Bookmakers’ favourite Andy Roddick eased into the quarter-finals but revealed a chink in his armoury which will provide a glimmer of hope for his next opponent Jonas Bjorkman.

The 20-year-old American number five seed took just under two hours to secure a 6-4 3-6 6-3 6-2 victory over a battling Paradorn Srichaphan in a lively curtain-raiser to the Centre Court appearance of Tim Henman.

Roddick stretched his winning run to nine matches to reach the last four of a Grand Slam for the second time but he was made to toil for the first three sets by a valiant opponent.

Both men received a standing ovation and Roddick will be pleased with a tough work-out in which he dropped a set for only the second time in the championships.

Greg Rusedski was the only player to take a set off the young American before today but Srichaphan showed how to combat his powerful serve.

Roddick made a confident start after the first game was interrupted for more than an hour by a rain break and he raced through the first set in 23 minutes, breaking his opponent in the fifth game.

The 6ft 2in American, who jointly holds the record with Rusedski for the fastest serve at 149mph, produced a 140mph blockbuster to finish the eighth game.

Srichaphan, who proved too good for Andre Agassi in last year’s second round, is also no slouch and he came up with a 123mph serve to save one set point in the ninth game but there no stopping the American as he served for the set.

The second set appeared to be going to form when the first five games all went with serve but then the unthinkable happened.

Srichaphan, the number 12 seed, produced a stunning return to gain his first break point and, although Roddick’s second serve was good enough to rescue him on that occasion, the battling Thai came back for more.

And, when Roddick put a forehand beyond the baseline, he demonstrated his annoyance by hitting the spare ball high into the crowd. Srichaphan then consolidated the break and eventually took the set 6-3 to level the match.

Srichaphan, who needed five sets to win both his first two matches, began to pick up useful points from the long baseline rallies and got close to the American with further break points in his first two service games of the third set but without being able to follow them up.

Roddick then achieved the only break after edging a lengthy sixth game and, after serving out for the third set, the Thai visibly began to tire.

Roddick achieved an early break in the fourth set and had his opponent racing back and forth in the fifth game before deceiving him with a lob to go 4-1 ahead.

Srichaphan managed to prevent a third successive break of serve but could not prevent the inevitable as Roddick booked a quarter-final clash with the unseeded Bjorkman, who beat Max Mirnyi 6-4 3-6 6-3 7-6.