Three of the biggest names in tennis, Roger Federer and sisters Venus and Serena Williams, crashed out at the quarterfinal stage of the Olympics in a night of shocks on Thursday. Federer's nightmare year plumbed new depths when he lost to American James Blake, a player he had beaten in all eight of their previous meetings, after torrential rain had delayed the start of the quarterfinals until late evening. The Swiss top seed's game went totally haywire against Blake and he lost 6-4, 7-6. With news of Federer's shock defeat reverberating around the Olympic tennis complex, Serena Williams became the second of the night's big casualties when she lost to Russian fifth seed Elena Dementieva 3-6, 6-4, 6-3. Home favorite Li Na then stole the show, out-hitting double Olympic champion Venus Williams in a sensational 7-5, 7-5 victory that sparked noisy celebrations on the floodlit Center Court. “Wow! You can't see this kind of crowd anywhere else. It helped me and pushed me a lot,” Li, the world number 42 but a one-time member of the top 20 club, told reporters. Li still does not know who her semifinal opponent will be as the quarterfinal between Jelena Jankovic and Dinara Safina was postponed when rain began falling again at 1.30 A.M. on Friday just as organizers hoped to catch up on the match program. Federer had been banking on an Olympic gold medal to ease the pain of defeat by Spain's Rafael Nadal in the Wimbledon final last month but when he needed the old spark to dig himself out of trouble it was nowhere to be seen. Blake sensed his chance from game one when the errors had already started flowing from Federer's racket. Not even a netcord when he served to stay in the match at 5-6 could save 12-time Grand Slam champion Federer, who will lose his world number one ranking to Nadal on Monday. Blake now plays Athens singles bronze medalist Fernando Gonazalez of Chile, who beat France's Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-4, 6-4. Second seed Nadal slipped through almost unnoticed amid the carnage, thrashing Austria's Jurgen Melzer 6-0, 6-4 to set up a tasty semifinal with Serbian third seed Novak Djokovic who beat Frenchman Gael Monfils 4-6, 6-1, 6-4. Dementieva will face Vera Zvonareva, who beat Austria's Sybille Bammer 6-3, 3-6, 6-3. – Reuters __
