LONDON: Title holder Andy Murray neutralised the big-swinging game of lofty South African Kevin Anderson to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals 6-4, 6-3 7-6(6) on Monday.

The 27-year-old Briton returned sharply and drew the 2.03-metre (6'8") Anderson into rallies to impose his game on the Wimbledon grass, where he is on a run of 17 successive victories.

Anderson, a career-high 18th in the world, broke Murray's serve only once, after rain forced a pause for the Centre Court roof to be closed with Murray 3-0 up in the second set.

But he upped his game in the third set to force a tense tiebreak and even had a set point before Murray won three points in a row to reach his seventh successive Wimbledon quarter-final.

Murray will next meet either 11th seed Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria, a 6-4, 7-6 (8/6), 6-2 winnner over Argentina's Leonardo Mayer, for a place in the semifinals.

Meantime, Canadian 20-year-old Eugenie Bouchard succeeded where Serena Williams failed as she beat Alize Cornet to reach the quarterfinals on another rain-hit day at Wimbledon on Monday.

Frenchwoman Cornet caused a sensation on Saturday by removing five-times champion and pre-tournament favourite Williams, but the fresh-faced Bouchard proved to be made of sterner stuff as she edged to a 7-6(5), 7-5 victory.

"That's cool. I didn't know that," Bouchard said of becoming the first Canadian to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals. "Another little historic thing for Canada."

The match was interrupted after five games to allow the Centre Court roof to close when more rain hit the championships after Saturday's lengthy disruption.

The second Monday is traditionally a feast of top names, with the last 16 in both men's and women's singles being played, but organisers were playing catch-up this year with several third-round matches still to be completed.

Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka, one of the victims of soggy Saturday when his match against Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin was cancelled, made up for lost time with a rapid 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 win completed just before a heavy rain shower arrived.

The Australian Open champion was facing three matches in three days and though he wasted little excess energy against the bespectacled Istomin, he did grumble about the schedulers.

"They just say what's going to be the schedule and that's it," Wawrinka said of the decision not to play his third-round match when the rain stopped on Saturday.

"Even if you want to talk to them, they're not going to change anything. They don't listen to the player. They just do what they think is good for them."

Japan's Kei Nishikori, the 10th seed, needed only four games to complete a 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(4) 6-4 third-round victory over Simone Bolelli after their match had been suspended because of bad light at the weekend.

Spain's Feliciano Lopez also belatedly reached the last 16, beating big-serving American John Isner in a four-set match that predictably included three tiebreaks.

Isner's defeat left the United States without a representative in the last 16 of the men's or women's singles for the first time since 1911.

Earlier in the day teenager Madison Keys had been forced to withdraw with a leg injury before resuming her third-round match against Kazakhstan's Yaroslava Shvedova.

They were locked at 6-6 in the second set when darkness fell on Saturday, with Shvedova having won the opener.

Shvedova will play last year's runner-up Sabine Lisicki in the fourth round after the German claimed a stop-go 6-4, 3-6, 6-1 victory over 11th seed Ana Ivanovic.

The defeat of Williams blew a large hole in the women's draw and Canada's Bouchard exploited it with a performance of grit and power against 25th seed Cornet.

Having reached the semifinals at both the Australian Open and French Open this year, Bouchard arrived at Wimbledon with the likes of former men's champion John McEnroe tipping her as his dark horse for the women's title.

She looked like she would be stretched into a third set when she trailed 5-3 in the second, but she continued going for her shots with abandon to claw back the deficit.

Serving at 5-6, Cornet tried in vain to hold off the Canadian trailblazer, rescuing one point after a nasty tumble, but finally succumbed when she fired a backhand long.

Croatia's 26th seed Marin Cilic took advantgage of a drier interlude to beat Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 7-6(8), 6-4, 6-4.