Federer makes progress despite falling for fan's shout
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Your support makes all the difference.You would have thought Roger Federer had dealt with every possible circumstance in his 1,017 matches on the tour, but on Saturday the 30-year-old Swiss experienced a first. On the verge of beating Ryan Harrison in the second round of the Miami Masters, Federer mistook a fan's shout of "out!" for a linesman's call. The error cost him his serve for the only time in the match and he needed another 25 minutes to close out a 6-2, 7-6 victory.
Federer was leading 5-2 but trailing 15-40 when the spectator shouted out as a forehand by the world No 3 hit the baseline. Federer stopped playing momentarily and by the time he realised his mistake Harrison had won the point and broken serve. "It completely threw me off," Federer said afterwards. "It's the first time it has ever happened in my career."
Harrison felt bad about it – "Obviously I want to win every point the right way," the 19-year-old said – but went on to take the second set into a tie-break. Federer, however, won the tie-break 7-3 to record his 40th victory in his last 42 matches. He now plays another American, Andy Roddick, who has won only two of their 23 meetings.
Andy Murray was handed a free passage into the last 16 after Milos Raonic pulled out of their third-round match last night. Raonic, the world No 26, injured his ankle in practice. Murray will next play the winner of last night's match between Gilles Simon and Jürgen Melzer.
Serena Williams, who is aiming to win the title for a record sixth time, hit eight aces in beating Italy's Roberta Vinci 6-2, 6-1. Kim Clijsters became the first major loser in the women's competition when she went down 6-4, 7-6 to her fellow Belgian Yanina Wickmayer. "It was a special win for me today because she was one of my idols growing up," 22-year-old Wickmayer said.
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