London, July 4 : Ana Ivanovic kept her wits about her through four rain disruptions to reach the quarter-finals of Wimbledon for the first time with a 6-1 2-6 6-4 win over Russian Nadia Petrova yesterday.

The French Open runner-up set up a battle of the teenagers with Nicole Vaidisova after the Czech earlier dethroned Wimbledon champion Amelie Mauresmo.

Ivanovic had romped through her previous three matches at the grasscourt grand slam without dropping a set but ran into a determined opponent yesterday.

Petrova, a quarter-finalist on her last appearance here in 2005, threatened to pull off an upset when she easily outclassed Ivanovic in the second set but failed to keep up the momentum in the decider.

For Ivanovic, the final interruption was particularly frustrating as she was just three points from victory.

''I went out there on 5-4 to serve and I looked at the sky. It was all dark. I was thinking: Is it going to hold this game?'' said the 19-year-old from Belgrade who honed her tennis skills in a drained swimming pool.

''I made a good first serve. I was 15-0 up, thought may be we can finish the game. But then on 15-15 it started pouring down so we had to stop.

''I was obviously a little bit nervous. She was also quite upset and started going for her shots.

''So may be it was a good thing to stop. It was very, very tough out there.

''I had to fight for every point because I didn't feel on the top of my game today but sometimes you have to win these kind of matches. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have chance to play better again.''

Reuters>