Federer, Soderling to meet again

Federer, seeded second at Wimbledon, defeated Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-3, 6-2, 6-7 (5-7), 6-1 and Soderling, seeded 13th, took out Nicolas Almagro 7-6 (9-7), 6-4, 6-4 in Friday's third-round play.

The winners will meet Monday in the Round of 16. They last played June 7 in the French Open title match with Federer taking a straight-set victory and improving to 10-0 in his career against Soderling.

Federer faltered slightly in the third set Friday but was otherwise strong. He broke Kohlschreiber's serve seven times and finished the match with two breaks in the 29-minute third set.

Fourth-seeded Novak Djokovic was very consistent in a 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 win over Mardy Fish. Djokovic won 75 percent of the points on serve and was broken just once in getting to the fourth round. He is to play Duda Sela on Monday. Sela upset 15th-seeded Tommy Robredo 7-6 (10-8), 7-5, 2-6, 7-5.

Also Friday, No. 7-seeded Fernando Verdasco piled up 57 winners in a 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, 7-6 (7-2) win over 32nd-seeded Albert Montanes, but ninth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was ousted 7-6 (7-5), 6-7 (5-7), 7-5, 7-6 (7-5) by Ivo Karlovic. There was just the only service break in the match and Karlovic had 46 aces in advancing to a match against Verdasco.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International.