The ‘Black Wednesday’ Wimbledon victims MyZA

Sharapova crashes out on injury-hit Black Wednesday. Photo: The News

Day three of the Wimbledon Championships have officially been named ‘Black Wednesday’, claiming top players who made their exit, as well as players who had to leave due to injuries.

It seems that Wimbledon 2013 has set out to shock. The first shock being Rafael Nadal losing to his 135-ranked Belgian competitor in the first round on Monday.

However, day three seems to have taken the cake when it comes to shocking both spectators and critics. Major upsets and an unprecedented injury count was the order of the day.

While the biggest shock of day three was quite possibly Roger Federer’s exit out of the tournament.

The defending champion has been placed in the same boat as Nadal, and lost to world number 116, Sergiy Stakhovsky in four sets. This untimely exit is Federer’s earliest exit in 11 years.

Ukranian Stakhovsky showed great spirit and showcased a wonderful display of grass court tennis to triumph 6-7, 7-6, 7-5 and 7-6. He also put an end to Federer’s amazing run of 36 consecutive Grand Slam quarter-final appearances.

Over on Court Two, women’s third seed Maria Sharapova was also robbed of any further competition after she too lost to a (much) lesser seeded player. The Russian blonde lost to world number 131, Micelle Larcher de Brito. And, just like Darcis did to Nadal, Micelle took down Maria in straight sets.

The 2004 champion fell three times after slipping on the grass and required an injury time out in the second set.

Sharapova also complained to the umpire that the court was dangerous, but refused to use it as an excuse after the match saying that it was the same for her opponent.

Black Wednesday was not only labelled as such because of the unusual number of world class players being defeated by their much lesser seeded opponents – a total of seven players pulled out of the tournament because of injury. – Andrew Norman