U.S. tennis has an upside

WIMBLEDON, ENGLAND —  Running American themes at Wimbledon lately have ranged from the popular “Why Don’t Americans Win Here Anymore?” to the buoyant “What Should the Americans Do to Recover?” and the casual “Hey, What’s Wrong With the Americans?”

Yet, as No. 9 James Blake’s surprising loss Friday deepened the themes, look who just beat Martina Hingis and cracked the round of 16.

Here’s Laura Granville, 26, former Stanford standout, veteran of the women’s tennis minor leagues, conqueror of a childhood tennis disadvantage.

She grew up in Chicago.

With the unusualness of her case established, she then utters things that wouldn’t turn up among the most oft-spoken quotations in elite tennis.

“I’ve always just played tennis because I loved it,” she said Friday as listeners withheld gasps.

“My parents, they were very serious about education,” she said in another stunner.

“I spent the day at school,” she said of her prep years. “I hate to say, a lot of times I’d only play an hour after school, and hour and a half, indoors. But it worked for me just because tennis wasn’t my life.”

All of that, and here she joins the second-week crowd at Wimbledon, among three and possibly four Americans. The group includes Andy Roddick, seeded No. 3 and most encouraged by his own play after a three-set win over Spain’s Fernando Verdasco. It includes No. 7-seeded Serena Williams, most encouraged by her own play after taking 43 minutes to accept congratulations from Milagros Sequera, the score being 6-1, 6-0.

It might well include Venus Williams after her match today against Akiko Morigami of Japan, but it does not include Blake, who followed a fourth-round loss at the Australian Open and a first-round loss at the French with a bewildering third-round loss to a clay maestro, Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain.

“Juan Carlos played great for the second and third sets, like he was confident, like he was playing when he was No. 1 in the world, I think,” Blake said after the 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (4) derailment.

Among Ferrero’s best showings?

“Could be, yeah,” Ferrero said. “Could be.”

That left the U.S. with a shortfall of remaining players in contrast to prior generations, but a boost from 2006 when the number dipped to one, and with the same number as the recently embattled Balkan nation of Serbia, which had its day at Wimbledon after a heady French Open.

By Friday midnight, Serbians Novak Djokovic and Janko Tipsarevic were still in the men’s singles draw and Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic were in the women’s, with Tipsarevic and Jankovic winning cliffhangers.

On Centre Court, Tipsarevic’s 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 8-6 win over Fernando Gonzalez of Chile, who had been seeded sixth, wowed the audience and pushed Serena Williams’ entry all the way back to 5:35 p.m. Williams said hello and goodbye, and then came Roger Federer.

In beating Marat Safin in a match of players who’ve been No. 1 in this lifetime, Federer extended his grass-court win streak to 51, his Wimbledon win streak to 31 and his sets record this week to 9-0. He also arranged that the second week will fill with chatter of his pursuit of Bjorn Borg’s open-era record of five straight Wimbledon titles.

He also improbably widened his repertoire on a key break point in the second set by hitting a service return that fluttered at a fairly high arc, landed on the baseline and then refused to bounce. Safin, backing up, whiffed at it, but neither screamed nor threw his racket, unlike at other junctures.

Granville, like Safin a part of the over-25 crowd, reached one previous Grand Slam fourth round when she beat Mary Pierce at the 2002 Wimbledon before encountering Amelie Mauresmo. Her previous Grand Slam bout with Hingis, in the 2001 U.S. Open first round, lasted for about a sneeze.

Reminded there were about eight people in the stands for that 6-2, 6-0 loss in 2001, Granville said, “I think I made eight shots in the court.”

This time, on a beaming afternoon at the All England Club, she found Hingis at No. 9, not No. 1. Both players agreed she found Hingis infirm with back problems, not in full-fitness imperious mode.

“I think overall I shouldn’t, shouldn’t have” played Wimbledon, Hingis said. Sixty-six minutes later, Granville found Hingis at the net for a handshake after a 6-4, 6-2 win, then came to the interview room, stared back down the long road a bit and used the word “Oklahoma.”

An expert on the leap from the college game to the professional, Granville once won 58 consecutive matches at Stanford, but her four pro titles all have come in the ITF Women’s Circuit as she keeps trying to cobble together enough points to play in WTA events. Her WTA tour ranking, once as high as 28 in 2003, stands at 77.

“I mean, there are points where you ask yourself, ‘Why am I doing this?’ ” she said. “Why am I here in the middle of Oklahoma with two people watching? But I think that’s what keeps me going.... I felt like I haven’t reached my potential. I haven’t played my best tennis year. So that’s why I’m still playing.”

She’ll still be playing on the second week against Michaella Krajicek, seeded No. 31, and, if she can surpass that, possibly Jankovic, which would match a country of which everyone asks what’s wrong, against a country of which everyone asks what’s right and only eight years after NATO bombed Serbia to clear out its despotic president.

“People keep asking me, ‘How is this possible?’ What is happening in the country?’ ” said Tipsarevic, possibly the tour’s lone Dostoevsky fan. “Maybe some radiation from the bombing or stuff.”

He was kidding.

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Glance

A look at Wimbledon on Friday:

* Men’s seeded winners: No. 1 Roger Federer, No. 3 Andy Roddick, No. 12 Richard Gasquet, No. 13 Tommy Haas, No. 20 Juan Carlos Ferrero.

* Men’s seeded losers: No. 5 Fernando Gonzalez, No. 9 James Blake, No. 15 Ivan Ljubicic, No. 21 Dmitry Tursunov, No. 26 Marat Safin.

* Women’s seeded winners: No. 1 Justine Henin, No. 3 Jelena Jankovic, No. 7 Serena Williams, No. 10 Daniela Hantuchova, No. 15 Patty Schnyder, No. 18 Marion Bartoli, No. 31 Michaella Krajicek.

* Women’s seeded losers: No. 8 Anna Chakvetadze, No. 9 Martina Hingis, No. 16 Shahar Peer, No. 19 Katarina Srebotnik, No. 24 Alona Bondarenko, No. 25 Lucie Safarova.

* Top players on court today: No. 2 Rafael Nadal vs. No. 28 Robin Soderling, No. 4 Novak Djokovic vs. Nicolas Kiefer, No. 10 Marcos Baghdatis vs. No. 23 David Nalbandian, No. 16 Lleyton Hewitt vs. No. 22 Guillermo Canas; No. 2 Maria Sharapova vs. No. 26 Ai Sugiyama, No. 4 Amelie Mauresmo vs. No. 28 Mara Santangelo, No. 6 Ana Ivanovic vs. Aravane Rezai, No. 23 Venus Williams vs. Akiko Morigami.