Murray survives giant test as Sharapova, Serena win

Fourth seed Murray, a semi-finalist for the last three years, cut 6ft 10in Croat Ivo Karlovic down to size as the world number four clinched a 7-5, 6-7 (5/7), 6-2, 7-6 (7/4) victory.
He next plays Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus.
Karlovic fired 17 aces to Murray’s 11 and 58 winners to 43. But the Croat was undone by 42 unforced errors compared to the Scot’s meagre eight.
“Winning is all that is important when you play a guy with his style. It’s so challenging to get into a rhythm,” Murray said. Former champions Sharapova and Williams took drastically different routes into the third round.
Top seed Sharapova, the 2004 champion, had to dig deep to clinch a gritty 7-6 (7/3), 6-7 (3/7), 6-0 victory over Bulgaria’s Tsvetana Pironkova, a semi-finalist in 2010 and quarter-finalist last year. Sharapova, playing her first tournament since her maiden French Open triumph, had recovered from 5-2 down to take the first set and had just broken to move 3-1 ahead when the tie was suspended due to bad light on Wednesday evening.
On the resumption, Pironkova belied her ranking of 38 to level the tie as the Court One crowd sensed an upset.
It was the first set the 24-year-old had snatched from the Russian in four meetings, but Sharapova took her 2012 three-set record to a perfect nine from nine by racing through the decider.
She will next face Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-Wei as last year’s runner-up tries to reach the Wimbledon final for the third time.