Friday, June 30 2006 14:58 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Wimbledon: Venus Williams waited until the last minute to get going.

Down a set and 5-2, the defending champion won 11 of the next 13 games to stave off a huge upset and beat Lisa Raymond 6-7 (4) 7-5 6-2 in the second round at Wimbledon.

The three-time champion was two points from defeat, when Raymond served for the match leading 5-3 in the second set, before she roared back to overcome the 84th-ranked American.

At one stretch, Williams won 34 of 39 points, including 18 in a row. She won six of her last seven service games at love, and closed out the match with her 11th ace.

"It's all about surviving to another day," Williams said.

"I felt it would be such a shame to go out in the second round. I almost met my match today," he said.

"The tennis gods caught up with me a bit today," Raymond said.

"I got a bit lucky in my first round and then I put myself in a perfect position to win that match and just didn't get it done," he said.

French Open champion Rafael Nadal pulled off a similar escape, coming back from two sets down to defeat 237th-ranked American qualifier Robert Kendrick on Centre Court and set up a third-round match against former champion Andre Agassi.

Two-time runner-up Andy Roddick advanced with a 6-4 6-1 6-2 win over Germany's Florian Mayer, a quarterfinalist here two years ago. Lleyton Hewitt, the 2002 champion, split the first four sets with South Korea's Lee Hyung-taik before play was suspended because of darkness.

Lee won the first set 7-6 (4), Hewitt took the next two 6-2 7-6 (6), and the Korean won the fourth 7-6 (5).

Kendrick, who plays mainly on the lower-tier challenger circuit, came within two points of victory in the fourth set before Nadal took charge to win 6-7 (4) 3-6 7-6 (2) 7-5 6-4. It's only the second time the Spaniard has come back from a two-set deficit.

"He was very tough, he was serving unbelievable," Nadal said of Kendrick, who had 28 aces.

"I was playing with a very good attitude all the time because it was very tough," he said.

Kendrick, who missed a simple backhand volley in the third set tiebreaker, was twice within two points of winning at 5-4 on Nadal's serve in the fourth set.

"I knew he wasn't going to give up," Kendrick said.

"He's just got so much fight in him. If I could just close it out with a few more returns, different story. But he's a great player. He's going to come back from two sets to love down a lot more tournaments to come," he said.

Nadal will next face Agassi, who beat Andreas Seppi of Italy 6-4 7-6 (2) 6-4 to extend his run in his 14th and final Wimbledon.

"He's very confident, great competitor," Agassi said of Nadal, who has won 60 straight clay-court matches but has never been past the third round on the grass at Wimbledon.

"Needless to say, very talented and fit. So it's going to be a hard match," he said.

The two have played only once, with Nadal beating Agassi in the final of the Masters Series event in Montreal on hard courts last year.

"It's a nice match for me, so it's a nice match for everybody," Nadal said.

"It's going to be tough," he said.