Berdych is blown away by Verdasco's power

A Spanish left-hander swept his way into the fourth round here yesterday. Given Rafael Nadal's appearance in the last two Wimbledon finals that hardly merited as big news at the All England Club, but the Spaniard in question was not the man from Majorca but the Madrileno, Fernando Verdasco.

In beating Tomas Berdych 6-4, 6-4, 6-0 Verdasco equalled his best performance on these courts, having reached the fourth round two years ago before losing to Radek Stepanek in five sets. He has made the last 16 at Grand Slam tournaments on three other occasions, at the French Open for the last two years and at the US Open in 2005.

Verdasco, 24, has only one title to his name, having won the Valencia clay-court event four years ago, although he has also been a runner-up in four other tournaments. He has one of the most feared forehands in the men's game. Able to hit the ball with tremendous power, he is always looking to run around his backhand to get the ball on to his favourite side. However, the world No 18's hit-and-hope style does not lend itself to the sort of consistency needed to win tournaments.

On this occasion, nevertheless, everything clicked into place. Verdasco never dropped his serve, hit 11 aces and won 90 per cent of the points when his first serve found the target. Having been forced to wait to get on court after play started 90 minutes late because of rain – the first interruption here after four days of unbroken play – the Spaniard stormed to victory in just an hour and 39 minutes. He cracked 49 winners to Berdych's 21.

The final game summed up Verdasco's superiority. From 0-15 down he won four points in a row: a big forehand winner into the corner, an ace, another thunderous forehand and finally a service winner down the middle that Berdych was barely able to reach. Court Two broke into appreciative applause for a player who can be a great entertainer on his day. In the fourth round he will play the winner of last night's match between Mario Ancic and David Ferrer.

In the past, Verdasco has given no indication of a particular liking for grass, but he enjoyed his best run on the surface last week at Nottingham, where he lost to Ivo Karlovic in the final. In the first two rounds here he accounted for Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber, a finalist on grass at Halle two weekends ago, and Belgium's Olivier Rochus.

Having finished the year in the world's top 30 for the first time at the end of 2007, courtesy of a good run in the closing half of the season, Verdasco broke into the world's top 20 two weeks ago. Now No 18 in the rankings, he is likely to make further progress following his success here.

After a moderate start to the year, Verdasco's results have picked up noticeably over the last six weeks. At the Hamburg Masters he beat two higher-ranked players in Ferrer and Mikhail Youzhny before losing to Roger Federer in the quarter-finals, while it took Nadal to end his run to the fourth round of the French Open.

There are 11 Spaniards in the world's top 100 and even at No 18 he has three fellow countrymen ranked above him: Nadal, Ferrer and Nicolas Almagro.

His success here has contributed to the most successful first week for Spanish men in Wimbledon history. Five Spaniards reached the third round, beating the country's previous best total of four, set in 2003, 2006 and 2007. The highest number of Spaniards through to the last 16 was three in 2006.

The result was a setback for Berdych, who had won his last three matches against Verdasco and was playing in the third round here for the fourth year in succession. Twelve months ago, the 22-year-old Czech enjoyed his best run at a Grand Slam tournament, reaching the quarter-finals before losing in straight sets to Nadal on Centre Court.

Despite early wins here over Evgeny Korolev and Victor Hanescu, Berdych had not arrived at the All England Club in the best of form, having lost to Robin Soderling in the second round at Halle, where he was the defending champion.

Berdych moved into the world's top 10 last summer but has since slipped to No 20 in the rankings and will almost certainly fall further when an updated list is published in nine days' time.

Although the Czech player reached the fourth round of the Australian Open, where he lost to Federer, and the semi-finals in Miami, where he went out to Nadal, he has departed in the first or second rounds of six other tournaments this year.

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