Wimbledon: Serena brushes aside Venus to make quarter-finals

Russian fourth seed Sharapova also through after defeating Diyas

LONDON: Serena Williams won the latest instalment of her rivalry with sister Venus as the world number one eased into the Wimbledon quarter-finals with a 6-4, 6-3 victory on Monday.

Serena, bidding for her sixth Wimbledon title, took just 67 minutes to see off Venus on Centre Court and will play Victoria Azarenka or Belinda Bencic for a place in the semi-finals.

The 33-year-old hit 36 winners and 10 aces to secure her 14th win in 26 meetings with her older sister, but it was clear neither sibling enjoyed the experience.

“It’s hard to feel excited about [beating] someone you root for all the time no matter what and you love so much and is your best friend in the world,” said Serena. “It’s never easy to play someone you love and care about. But I don’t know how many more moments like this we’ll have. I plan on playing for years but you never know if we’ll have the opportunity to face each other. So I just took the moment in.”



Meanwhile, Maria Sharapova endured her toughest match of the tournament so far at Wimbledon but still made it through to the quarter-finals with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Kazakhstan’s Zarina Diyas.

The Russian fourth seed, who won the 2004 title, has yet to drop a set but came through what was by far her longest match of the tournament in the 97-minute contest on the 11,000-seater Court One.

She faces Coco Vandeweghe in Tuesday’s quarter-finals after the US world number 47 knocked out Czech sixth seed Lucie Safarova, last month’s beaten French Open finalist, their fourth round encounter.

“The further you go, the tougher it gets. My opponent is a really good grasscourt player. She stayed really low and hit so hard so I really had to be ready for all her shots,” said Sharapova.

And earlier in the day, Madison Keys entered the women’s quarter-finals with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 win over qualifier Olga Govortsova.

The US 21st seed was stunned by the Belarusian world number 122 in the first set on Court 18 but turned it around to win the fourth round contest in an hour and 33 minutes.

Keys faces Polish 13th seed Agnieszka Radwanska, who beat Serbian former world number one Jelena Jankovic 7-5, 6-4, in Tuesday’s quarter-finals.

Keys, 20, reached her first Grand Slam semi-final at this year’s Australian Open.

Gasquet downs Kyrgios to reach last-eight

Richard Gasquet reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the second time while Vasek Pospisil became only the third Canadian man to make the last-eight.

French 21st seed Gasquet defeated Nick Kyrgios 7-5, 6-1, 6-7 (7/9), 7-6 (8/6) to avenge a second-round loss to the temperamental Australian in 2014.

The 29-year-old won a last-16 clash at the majors for just the third time in 19 attempts.

For Kyrgios, who has delighted and enraged Wimbledon in equal measure, it was another topsy-turvy encounter.

At one stage, he ‘tanked’ a couple of points, berated the umpire before seeking a consoling hug from a ballboy as his attempt to repeat his run to last year’s quarter-finals failed.

The 20-year-old had a set point in the fourth set before his 10th double fault of the match handed victory to the Frenchman.

Unseeded Pospisil became only the third Canadian man to reach the quarter-finals with a 4-6, 6-7 (4/7), 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 win over Serbian 22nd seed Viktor Troicki.

The world number 56 won his third five-set match in four rounds and goes on to face either 2013 champion Andy Murray or Croatia’s big-serving Ivo Karlovic for a place in the semi-finals.

Pospisil follows Robert Powell (1908, 1910 and 1912) and Milos Raonic (2014) as the only Canadian men
to have reached the last-eight at the All England Club. 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th,  2015.

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