Roger Federer of Switzerland hits a return to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France during their quarter-final match at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, June 29, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

Strangely distant 

A strangely distant Federer seemed resigned to his fate as Tsonga roared past him and he was sanguine despite a defeat that raises question marks about his ability to add to his record haul of major silverware.

"Except the score, many many things went right," Federer, who played better than he did in last year's quarter-final defeat by Tomas Berdych, told reporters.

"I thought I played a good match myself. I'm actually pretty pleased with my performance today. It's kind of hard going out of the tournament that way, but unfortunately it does happen sometimes."

For a player who won his first 41 matches of the year Djokovic looked vulnerable against Australian upstart Tomic who chipped away at the Serb's confidence with clever play that made a mockery of his 18 years.

After an understandably nervy start to his first grand slam quarter-final he settled down and had plenty of chances to produce another massive shock before Djokovic's greater experience helped him to a 6-2 3-6 6-3 7-5 victory.

Djokovic is now just one victory away from knocking Nadal off the top of the rankings even if the Spaniard goes on to retain his title.

"You can say that we had kind of waves throughout the whole match where I played better in the first, nine, 10 games, then he played better," Djokovic, who reeled off seven games in a row to regain control midway through a tricky tactical match, told reporters.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France falls during his quarter-final match against Roger Federer of Switzerland at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, June 29, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

Nadal must win the title to have any chance of remaining at No.1 but rankings were last thing on his mind as he admitted the foot that needed an MRI scan after his last-16 victory over Juan Martin del Potro was worrying him.

"Very happy to be in semi-finals, first thing, but my foot is not fine," the 25-year-old told reporters after a relatively comfortable win over the American number one.

"But we are in quarter-finals of Wimbledon. Is an emergency, so I had to play," added Nadal, who said the anaesthetic had numbed his foot for five hours.

"I am not scared because I know I have to try my best for the rest of the tournament. That's what I gonna do. And I'm ready to play."

The All England Club was again full to capacity long before play started as fans flocked in, thousands of them heading to watch Murray take on Lopez on the giant screen beside the grass bank nicknamed Henman Hill.

Left-hander Lopez was the last player to beat former British No.1 and three-times semi-finalist Tim Henman at Wimbledon but he was never in with a chance of ending world number four Murray's hopes.

The women return to the spotlight on Thursday when Maria Sharapova takes on Germany's Sabine Lisicki in the semi-finals and Petra Kvitova plays Victoria Azarenka.