Andy Roddick Loses At Wimbledon To Unseeded Feliciano Lopez

In a surprise upset at Wimbledon’s Center Court, unseeded Feliciano López of Spain beat world number eight and American number two Andy Roddick of USA in straight sets. The match ended at 7-6 (2), 7-6 (2), 6-4, in a little over two hours.

Not only had Roddick, 28, beaten Lopez, 29, in each of their previous seven meetings, he also triumphed over Lopez on grass earlier this month at the Wimbledon warmup at Queen's Club.

Lopez hit 28 aces, and only seven unforced errors. He was able to pass Roddick with relative ease off both his forehand and backhand. Roddick had three double-faults when serving at 4-5 down.

To make matters worse, Roddick received a warning for uttering an obscenity as frustation got the better of him.

This is Roddick's second straight loss at Wimbledon, and his third in four years before the quarterfinals to an unseeded player. Last year's defeat by Lu Yen-hsun of Taipei was the low point of Roddick's year but even though Friday's result was a round worse, Roddick was circumspect. “It's easier for me to walk out of here and move forward than, let's say, 2008 where I lost to [Janko] Tipsarevic and I felt like I completely choked or last year where I had a million opportunities and kind of gave it away. Those are tougher to take now, I think,” Roddick said at the post-match press conference, giving credit to Lopez for his game.

But Roddick is not prepared to stop chasing the Wimbledon dream. “What do you do?” he said. “You keep moving forward until you decide to stop. At this point I’ve not decided to stop, so I’ll keep moving forward.” The former US Open winner, who took Roger Federer to the longest fifth set in a grand-slam final at Wimbledon in 2009, admits that he has not been in top form for a while, but he was optimistic. "I don't think I've played my best since probably April of last year," Roddick said. "I think I can improve… it has to get better, there's no doubt."

With Roddick's exit, the only Americans remaining in the Gentlemen's Singles draw are No. 10 Mardy Fish and Alex Bogomolov, Jr.

Roddick's next big tournament will be next month against Spain, and probably López again, in the quarter-finals of the Davis Cup in his hometown of Austin, Texas. Meanwhile, López will now have to gather himself as he tries to equal his best-ever performance here, having reached the last eight in 2005 and 2008.

López has become popular on the tour, especially with his female fans, most notably, Andy Murray's mother Judy, who nicknamed him "Deliciano." The name has taken Twitter by storm, and López admitted he likes it. "She's so funny," López said. "It's just something that everybody knows now because somebody posted it on Twitter. I have to like it. It's kind of funny. I mean, it's OK."