Federer extends grass win streak

Three of the top women each won in less than an hour.
WIMBLEDON, England (AP) -- The top women were in a big hurry at Wimbledon on Wednesday. So was Roger Federer.
The three-time defending men's champion routed Tim Henman 6-4, 6-0, 6-2, winning 11 straight games at one stretch to move into the third round and extend his record grass-court winning streak to 43 matches.
Federer, who took 85 minutes to dismantle Henman on Centre Court, looks untouchable as he bids to become the third man in the Open era to win four straight Wimbledon titles.
He dropped only seven games in his first-round win Tuesday over Richard Gasquet, and said he's never played so well this early in the tournament.
"I've had a different kind of a draw, where people are expecting me to struggle more," Federer said. "That I came through that convincing obviously gives me a lot of confidence. Sends out maybe a little bit of a message for the other players."
Women excel
Defending women's champ Venus Williams, former winner Maria Sharapova and top-seeded Amelie Mauresmo swept their first-round matches in less than an hour -- losing only three games among them.
Williams crushed 103rd-ranked American Bethanie Mattek 6-1, 6-0, in 51 minutes on Centre Court; Sharapova took the same amount of time to dispatch Anna Smashnova 6-2, 6-0; and Mauresmo beat Croatian qualifier Ivana Abramovic 6-0, 6-0, in 39 minutes.
Second-seeded Kim Clijsters needed even less time to reach the third round: she advanced by walkover after her opponent, Viktoriya Kutuzova, pulled out with a viral infection. No. 3 Justine Henin-Hardenne beat Russia's Ekaterina Bychkova 6-1, 6-2 in 55 minutes.
The one-sided trend continued late in the day with former champion Martina Hingis downing Italy's Tathiana Garbin, 6-1, 6-2, in 60 minutes. No. 9 Anastasia Myskina dropped just four games in a 6-0, 6-4 win over Cara Black in 51 minutes.
Roddick struggles
Andy Roddick, meanwhile, fought for nearly three hours before overcoming Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia, serving 28 aces in a 6-7 (5), 6-4, 7-6 (6), 6-2 first-round victory.
In one of the most compelling matches of the tournament, with both players diving full length onto the grass to reach shots, the turning point came when Roddick came from 5-4 down to win the third-set tiebreaker.
"That was huge," Roddick said. "I wanted that one real bad."
Roddick then broke at love for a 3-1 lead in the fourth set, thumping his fist on his heart, and cruised the rest of the way. He saved all nine break points against him in the match, converting three of the four he earned.
"My whole thing is survive and advance," Roddick said. "I didn't throw my best stuff out there, but I played OK when it mattered."
Henman, a four-time Wimbledon semifinalist who was unseeded this year because of a drop in his ranking, was no match for Federer in a big letdown for the British fans still hoping for a first homegrown men's champion since Fred Perry in 1936.
Federer won 11 straight games from the end of the first set through 4-0 in the third. He lost only five points in the second set, broke Henman six times and had 28 winners and only eight unforced errors.
"He's such a good front-runner," Henman said. "He gets better and better and makes life more and more difficult. I think he's the best player I've ever played against, full stop."