Ivanisevic Takes Fifth After Losing in Five : Wimbledon: He stomps off after dropping the decisive set to Martin in only 16 minutes.

WIMBLEDON, England —  He’s tall, left-handed, last year’s Wimbledon runner-up and as gone as the last train out of Victoria Station.

He’s Goran Ivanisevic, tennis’ soldier of misfortune, who was the big loser Saturday as the game’s most famous tournament turned the corner on its two-week walk on the grass.

What’s the tab? He lost his match, his temper, $2,500 and his sense of humor.

In all, it wasn’t a particularly memorable outing by Ivanisevic, the No. 6-ranked player in the world, who lost to Todd Martin, 2-6, 7-6 (7-3), 6-7 (7-4), 7-5, 6-0, then stomped off without offering an explanation.

What Ivanisevic might have explained is how he could lose the final set in 16 minutes without winning so much as a game.

“I think his spirit was broken,” said Martin, who didn’t think Ivanisevic tanked the last set.

Others might not be as sure, but it went into the books as the No. 30-ranked Martin’s best victory in his second Wimbledon and another puzzling performance by Ivanisevic, who in his brief career has proved to be a fountain for such muddy waters.

Ivanisevic had survived two five-set scares in his first two matches, but couldn’t find his way out of trouble this time. He had 24 aces, but 15 double-faults and a code violation for cracking his racket when he slammed it to the ground.

That bit of agronomy cost Ivanisevic a $500 fine. He also picked up a $2,000 fine for declining to show for a news conference as asked.

It probably didn’t matter. What would he have said anyway? After he pulled out his second-round match against Chris Bailey in the fifth set, Ivanisevic said he was so close to losing, he could see himself checking his luggage at the airport.

After Saturday, Ivanisevic saw himself getting his boarding pass.

Meanwhile, Martin found himself with some traveling companions into the fourth round. Martin, a bearded, 6-foot-6 22-year-old from Lansing, Mich., will match big serves with David Wheaton in the fourth round.

Wheaton won Saturday’s longest match, a 4-hour 22-minute endurance contest with Michael Chang, 6-4, 6-4, 5-7, 4-6, 6-4, after coming from a break down in each of the first two sets.

Wheaton twice led by a break in the fourth set, but couldn’t shed himself of the resilient Chang until the finish.

For Chang, it was the end of a long journey that produced this in three matches: 15 sets, three tiebreakers, 156 games and 11 hours 32 minutes of tennis.

Chang was asked if he was campaigning to get paid by the hour.

“I’d be a pretty rich man, wouldn’t I?” he said.

Wheaton, 24, and ranked No. 34, has won six consecutive matches against Chang but still came away impressed.

“No matter what serve I hit, it was coming back at my feet about 200 miles an hour,” he said.

It was full speed ahead for Stefan Edberg, who hardly broke a sweat in dispatching Chris Wilkinson, 6-4, 7-5, 6-3, in 1 hour 58 minutes.

As usual, Edberg was the picture of understatement in his estimation of how easy it was: “I didn’t really feel too bad.”

And why would he? The No. 2-seeded player, a two-time champion, had 23 break-point chances and made nine to wrap up a fourth-round encounter against 28-year-old Richard Matuszewski, ranked No. 117 and playing in his second Wimbledon.

“I think I have a good chance,” Edberg said.

Unless he trips over the baseline, Edberg seems to be a cinch for the semifinals since the only other seeded players in the bottom half of the draw are No. 3 Jim Courier and No. 13 Wayne Ferreira.

It’s all sort of wide open, Edberg said.

“There’s nobody really taking a lot of shots out there,” he said. “There’s a lot of names out there.”

One of them is Courier, who will play Ferreira in the fourth round. Courier had sort of an up-and-down day. He lost only one set to Jason Stoltenberg, but he also lost his guitar when burglars broke into his rented flat.

Courier’s 6-4, 7-6 (11-9), 3-6, 6-4 victory was notable for the fact that he needed seven set points to win the second set and that he got a code violation for an audible obscenity that is probably going to cost him some money.

“I can’t take it back, but I wish I could,” Courier said.

Ivanisevic probably felt the same way, but nobody ever asked. They couldn’t find him.

* LIKE OLD TIMES: Zina Garrison-Jackson, out of the top 10 for three years, resurfaced with an upset of No. 6 Mary Joe Fernandez.