Russians Dinara Safina and Elena Dementieva enter the Wimbledon semi-finals where they will meet Americans Venus and Serena Williams respectively.
Defending champion Venus Williams closed in Tuesday on a sixth Wimbledon title with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska whose quarter-final challenge melted in the searing heat. It will be the 29-year-old American’s eighth semi-final appearance in 10 years here and she next tackles Dinara Safina, the world number one and top seed, who will be playing in her first.
Venus, bidding to become the first woman to win a hat-trick of Wimbledon titles since Steffi Graf’s three-in-arow from 1991 to 1993, has now won 32 consecutive sets at the All England Club, a run stretching back to the third round in 2007. She shrugged off the 33-degree heat to breeze through the first set in 27 minutes, serving up two love games on her way to a 5-0 lead before the 11th seeded Radwanska got on the board. The Pole broke to love to lead 2-0 in the second set but that was as good as it got for the 20-year-old who had no answer to the American’s brutal hitting power. Venus ran away with the next six games to claim victory in 68 minutes.
Safina, still searching for a first Grand Slam title, had to come back from a set down for the second day in succession as the Russian saw off unseeded German teenager Sabine
Lisicki 6-7 (5/7), 6-4, 6-1. Safina was hit with a code violation for racquet abuse when she double-faulted on setpoint in the first set tie-break, but she recovered her composure to make the last four. “I think I was Santa Claus today serving so many double faults,” said Safina, who served up 15 in all. “It’s not going to be easy playing against Venus. She likes playing on grass and I have nothing to lose.”
Russian fourth seed Elena Dementieva, like Safina still without a Grand Slam title, reached her second successive Wimbledon semi-final with a comfortable 6-2, 6-2 win over London-based Italian Francesca Schiavone. Dementieva, who has not dropped a set so far, will tackle two-time champion Serena Williams, the second seed.
Defending champion Venus Williams closed in Tuesday on a sixth Wimbledon title with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska whose quarter-final challenge melted in the searing heat. It will be the 29-year-old American’s eighth semi-final appearance in 10 years here and she next tackles Dinara Safina, the world number one and top seed, who will be playing in her first.
Venus, bidding to become the first woman to win a hat-trick of Wimbledon titles since Steffi Graf’s three-in-arow from 1991 to 1993, has now won 32 consecutive sets at the All England Club, a run stretching back to the third round in 2007. She shrugged off the 33-degree heat to breeze through the first set in 27 minutes, serving up two love games on her way to a 5-0 lead before the 11th seeded Radwanska got on the board. The Pole broke to love to lead 2-0 in the second set but that was as good as it got for the 20-year-old who had no answer to the American’s brutal hitting power. Venus ran away with the next six games to claim victory in 68 minutes.
Safina, still searching for a first Grand Slam title, had to come back from a set down for the second day in succession as the Russian saw off unseeded German teenager Sabine
Lisicki 6-7 (5/7), 6-4, 6-1. Safina was hit with a code violation for racquet abuse when she double-faulted on setpoint in the first set tie-break, but she recovered her composure to make the last four. “I think I was Santa Claus today serving so many double faults,” said Safina, who served up 15 in all. “It’s not going to be easy playing against Venus. She likes playing on grass and I have nothing to lose.”
Russian fourth seed Elena Dementieva, like Safina still without a Grand Slam title, reached her second successive Wimbledon semi-final with a comfortable 6-2, 6-2 win over London-based Italian Francesca Schiavone. Dementieva, who has not dropped a set so far, will tackle two-time champion Serena Williams, the second seed.
On Monday, the first match played entirely under Wimbledon’s new retractable roof produced a five-set marathon that finished later than any previous Centre Court encounter in history. They might as well have called it Wimbledon’s first "night session."
What’s more, it ended with a British winner celebrating in front of a raucous home crowd. Andy Murray and Stanislas Wawrinka battled for nearly four hours on Monday under the translucent roof and stadium floodlights before the third-seeded Scot closed out a 2-6, 6-3, 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 victory with a forehand winner at 10:39 p.m. Murray sank to his knees and bowed his head on the grass. He then stood up and smacked a ball that hit the roof above.
Murray, who will face Juan Carlos Ferrero in the quarters, could now enjoy an advantage over other players who haven’t experienced the indoor conditions yet.
The men’s quarterfinals are set for Wednesday.
The other matchups are five-time champion Roger Federer against 6-foot-10 (2.08-meter) Croat Ivo Karlovic;
2002 champion Lleyton Hewitt vs. two-time finalist Andy Roddick; and No. 3 Novak Djokovic vs. Tommy Haas.
Djokovic and Murray are relative youngsters at 22 compared to the other quarterfinalists:
Roddick (26), Federer (27), Hewitt (28), Ferrero (29), Karlovic (30) and Haas (31).
Roddick and Hewitt have met 11 times, including at the French Open, U.S. Open and Australian Open, but never at Wimbledon. Hewitt holds the overall edge of 6-5, but Roddick has won the last four, including a 7-6, 7-6 win in the third round at the Queen’s Club grass-court Wimbledon warmup.
Its looks over ranking that decide which women play on Wimbledon’s Centre Court!
Wimbledon tennis organizers have been accused of using looks rather than ranking to decide which women play on Centre Court.
According to Sky News, in the first week of the Championships, fans missed out on watching several top seeded players on the exclusive Centre Court.
Yesterday, the number two seed Serena Williams played her second round game on Court One, while fourth seed Elena Dementieva appeared on Court Two.
Centre Court was allocated to the 24th seed Maria Sharapova and the unseeded Gisela Dulko in what was widely regarded as a ‘battle of the babes’.
The Times said some eyebrows were raised last Thursday, when the ninth seed played on Centre Court, leaving the top seed Dinara Safina on Court Two.
“There was a little bit of surprise in putting the Wozniacki-Kirilenko match on Centre Court — two beautiful blonde girls. You could argue there it was more box office, than whether they were deserving of a place on Centre Court,” the paper said.
On Friday, Serena Williams played on Court Two, while Centre Court saw action from the attractive, but lower ranked eighth seed Victoria Azarenka and 28th seeded Sorana Cirstea.
Olympic Gold Medallist Tessa Sanderson, described the situation as “laughable”.
“I can’t believe they’re doing this. You can’t judge people by the way they look. Women have been getting a lot better at raising their profile in sport. This is the most pathetic thing I’ve heard,” she was quoted, as saying. All England Club spokesman Johnny Perkins said: “We don’t look at a player and say she is attractive or he is attractive, therefore they play on the big court. But if a player is deemed to be popular, for whatever reason, they are more likely to be on one of the bigger courts.” Popularity and looks are closely related. What say?
Wimbledon 2009 Women's Quarterfinals results:
Dinara Safina (1) def. Sabine Lisicki 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-1
Serena Williams (2) def. Victoria Azarenka (8) 6-2, 6-3
Venus Williams (3) def. Agnieszka Radwanska (11) 6-1, 6-2
Elena Dementieva (4) def. Francesca Schiavone 6-2, 6-2
Pic of the day
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