Federer’s long skid continues in loss to Blake

BEIJING (AP) — Roger Federer directed an angry scream toward his feet. He swatted a stray ball in frustration. He slapped his thigh, hung his head and stomped behind the baseline.

And finally, he questioned calls, something he hates to do. That merely made him angrier: He went 0-4 on replay challenges.

For Federer, it was that kind of night. It has been that kind of year.

Federer’s long slump continued and the bid for his first Olympic singles medal ended Thursday when he lost to American James Blake.

So began an upset parade in the quarterfinals. Serena Williams lost to Elena Dementieva of Russia, and as the clock approached midnight, Venus Williams was beaten by Li Na of China.

Matches were delayed 3 hours, 35 minutes at the start because of rain, pushing back the schedule. With four matches still in progress and top-ranked Jelena Jankovic about to begin against Dinara Safina, rain at 1:15 a.m. forced a halt until today.

The sequence of surprising results came in a tournament that had gone mostly according to form through three rounds. But upsets have long been the norm in Olympic tennis — since 1988, no top-five player has won the gold medal in men’s singles.

Federer won’t do it this year. With the sort of lackluster performance once unthinkable for the stylish Swiss, he was eliminated 6-4, 7-6 (2).

The No. 5-seeded Dementieva, who won a silver medal in Sydney in 2000, raced to a 5-0 lead in the final set and held on to beat Serena Williams 3-6, 6-4, 6-3. The unseeded Li then delighted a partisan center-court crowd by eliminating Venus Williams 7-5, 7-5.