Federer floored on a day of early exits

Centre Court witnessed one of the greatest upsets of all time as Federer lost 6-7 (5/7) 7-6 (7/5) 7-5 7-6 (7/5) to the unseeded Ukrainian, who had only made the second round at SW19 once before.

It was a fitting end to a topsy-turvy day in SW19, where five men were forced into early exits by withdrawing from the singles through injury.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the sixth seed, called time after three sets of his meeting with Ernests Gulbis because of knee and wrist problems.

Rafael Nadal’s conqueror Steve Darcis had earlier made himself unavailable for his second-round clash due to a shoulder injury, while Marin Cilic, John Isner and Radek Stepanek also either quit matches or could not start.

Federer’s defeat brought to an end to his incredible run of 36 consecutive appearances in grand slam quarter-finals.

STUNNING: Sergiy Stakhovsky celebrates his remarkable win

Last year the Swiss upset the odds to equal Pete Sampras’ record of seven titles at the All England Club.

Given that he will be 32 the next time the championships come around, many have already started speculating that Federer has past his best, but the 17-time major winner laughed off such talk.

Asked whether it felt like the end of an era, Federer replied: ‘‘No. I still have plans to play for many more years to come.

‘‘It’s normal for people to feel different after losing early all of a sudden.

‘‘I’ll be okay. I’m very happy about it. I wish (my run) wasn’t going to end here today.

‘‘But I don’t think that’s something fans are going to mourn, and neither am I.

‘‘I can’t panic at this point, that’s clear. I just have to go back to work and come back stronger really.

‘‘It’s hard to do sometimes, but usually I do turnarounds pretty good.

‘‘There’s still a lot of tennis left. I’ll appreciate what I’ve achieved when I’m retired and that’s not right now.’’ Speculation about Federer’s glorious career being on the wane is nothing new.

The Swiss went through a barren patch of nine failures in majors as Novak Djokovic and Nadal asserted their dominance on the men’s game, but the 31-year-old came back to last summer to win at the All England Club.

Yesterday he had no answer to Stakhovsky’s serve and volley tactics on Centre Court.

Asked how he might reflect on his victory in his old age, the Ukrainian said with a smile: ‘‘I can definitely tell my grandkids: ‘I kicked the butt of Roger Federer’.’’ Federer strutted confidently on to Centre Court, this time not wearing the outlawed orange-soled trainers he wore in the first round, and edged a tight firstset tie-break.

Stakhovsky failed to take two break points in the second set, but he then nicked a tiebreak to level the match.

Stakhovsky broke again in the third set and the Ukrainian’s historic victory was sealed after a tense third tie-break of the match.

‘‘Beating Roger here on his court, where he’s a legend, is I think having definitely a special place in my career,’’ said Stakhovsky, who will now play Jurgen Melzer in the third round.

‘‘Roger Federer is the greatest player we had. He’s the biggest name we had and we still have.

‘‘I think as a person he showed us that you don’t have to be really somewhere else, you can be a decent man achieving a lot of things and still be a person which everybody admires.’’ Federer added: “I didn’t feel any different today, like I felt something was coming.

‘‘Today was a normal day. I had a normal warm-up, it was a normal match really.

‘‘I was hoping to win the match today, but I couldn’t do it so it’s clearly disappointing.’’

FEDERER IN NUMBERS

Roger Federer’s incredible run at grand slams ended as he was stunned at Wimbledon. The loss ends a long run of making the last eight of grand slams for the Swiss and, here, The Northern Echo looks at the numbers involved.

1 This is the first time neither Federer nor Rafael Nadal have made the third round of a grand slam they have both played in.

7 The number of Wimbledon titles Federer has won.

36 The number of consecutive grand slam quarterfinals Federer had made prior to this tournament.

101 This is Federer’s first loss to a man outside the top 100 since he lost to the 101st-ranked Richard Gasquet in Monte Carlo in 2005.

116 The ranking of Stakhovsky.

2002 This is Federer’s earliest Wimbledon exit since a first-round loss to Mario Ancic.

2003 This is Federer’s earliest loss at any grand slam since 2003 when he went out in the first round of the French Open to Luis Horna.

2003 This is the earliest Wimbledon defeat for a defending champion since Lleyton Hewitt lost to Ivo Karlovic in 2003.