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Some players wonder: Is there any way out?

Under review: Federer, Safin, Blake, Tipsarevic, Jankovic, Granville

Cynthia Lum/WireImage.com

Laura Granville exploited Martina Hingis' bad hip and advanced.

FROM WIMBLEDON – It appears to be time to bury Marat Safin as big time competitor, at least until he reaches the final of a decent-sized event again. His performance in his 6-1, 6-4, 7-6(4) loss to Roger Federer was less than entertaining and it never really felt like he was in the match, even in the third set. He gave it a go, but he can't run with Federer nor can he match spins and shot selection with the Swiss. But at least he was honest about what might occur for the rest of the tournament.

"I don't see anybody who can hurt him because everybody knows how to play against him but they don't have enough weapons to beat him, unfortunately," Safin said.

There are so many matches to talk about, but first to the little-known Serb Janko Tipsarevic who upended Fernando Gonzalez 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 8-6. The man with many hairstyles, earrings and a gripping goatee is a huge fan of my favorite Dostoyevsky novel, "The Idiot." On his left arm, he has a tattoo that says "Beauty will save the world" which he took from the book.

"The main character (Prince Myshkin) believes in the idea that the inner beauty will save the world, and because of that idea he dies at the end," Tipsarevic said.

My memory of the book is that to the prince, inner beauty meant the existence of the soul, and Tipsarevic has a ton of that. Dostoyevsky constantly struggled with why there is a loving god that supposedly created so much suffering in the world. Gonzalez must have been feeling the same way when he went off court, after blowing an easy slice backhand on match point. Why did God love Tipsy on the day rather than him? Because Tipsy loves Dostoyevsky who, if he would have seen Federer play, would have had the answer to his question: As the Church of Emmanuel in Wimbledon Village says on a sign out front, "God created Roger Federer so all of us recreational players can understand how the game [of life] should really be played." Or something like that.

Back to Tipsarevic, who s the poorest of the high-flying Serbs. He said that growing up, his family barely had enough money for vegetables.

"My family from the paycheck that my father had working as a PE professor could buy two kilograms of carrot. That was it, nothing else. Apart from that job, he was selling and renting skis because this was let's say popular in Serbia during wintertime. My mother is a housewife so we didn't have any income from her. Luckily my father believed enough that I can become an independent tennis player, that I one day can live, buy a house, support a family from the job I'm doing today."

By entering the fourth round, he should be able to buy plenty of veggies, as should American Laura Granville, who reached the second week of Wimbledon for the second time by stepping on a sore-hipped Martina Hingis 6-4, 6-2.

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