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Serena powers on
Six-time champion Serena Williams reached her 10th Wimbledon semi-final on Tuesday with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Russia 21st seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
The 34-year-old world number one’s win sets up the enticing prospect of a final showdown with sister Venus, a five-time champion who is also through to the last four.
Serena, who is bidding for a record-equalling Open era 22nd Grand Slam title, goes on to face Russian world number 50 Elena Vesnina, who defeated Slovak 19th seed Dominika Cibulkova, for a place in Saturday’s title match.
Venus, 36, made the semi-finals for the first time since 2009 earlier Tuesday by beating Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 7-6 (7/5), 6-2.
“They showed Venus’s score on court and I was like ‘yaaaay’. I want her to win so bad, but not in the final if I’m there,” said defending champion Serena who took her Grand Slam match win record to 302 -- four behind Martina Navratilova’s all-time mark.
It is the 11th time that the sisters have advanced to the semi-final of the same Grand Slam event.
Serena took a 5-0 career lead over Russian 21st seed Pavlyuchenkova into Tuesday’s match, having not dropped a set to her opponent since their first meeting in 2010.
But the match was decided in the ninth game of both sets with Williams carving out the only breaks of the match against Pavlyuchenkova, playing in her first Wimbledon quarter-final.
The American finished the match with an 11th ace.
“It was good. I am excited to be able to win and get through, it felt really good,” she said before heading off to play doubles with her sister.
“I am just trying to win my match. I knew I had a tough opponent and one thing I have learnt this year is just to focus on the match.”
Vesnina tops Cibulkova
Elena Vesnina swept into her first Wimbledon semi-final on Tuesday as the unseeded Russian’s 6-2, 6-2 victory over Dominika Cibulkova freed her Slovakian opponent to focus on her impending wedding.
Cibulkova is due to marry fiancé Miso Navara in her hometown of Bratislava on Saturday -- the same day as the women’s final -- and the 27-year-old was willing to postpone the ceremony if she won the quarter-final.
But world number 50 Vesnina took advantage of a distracted display from Cibulkova, who seemed torn between wedding bells and Wimbledon glory, to become the fifth unseeded woman to reach the All England Club semi-finals since the Grand Slams switched to 32 seeds in 2001.
Vesnina will play defending champion Serena Williams on Thursday for a place in the final, while 19th seed Cibulkova can dash back to Slovakia to prepare for her big day.
Venus and Kerber advance
Five-time champion and nostalgic favourite Venus Williams on Tuesday reached her first Wimbledon semi-final in seven years, setting up a clash with Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber.
Venus, 36, is the oldest women’s semi-finalist since Martina Navratilova in 1994 as she also moved a step closer to a final showdown with her sister and defending champion Serena Williams.
The American veteran, seeded eight, enjoyed a 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 victory over Kazakhstan’s world number 96 Yaroslava Shvedova.
German fourth seed Kerber, meanwhile, reached her second Wimbledon semi-final with a 7-5, 7-6 (7/2) win over Simona Halep, the fifth seed from Romania.
Tuesday’s other quarter-finals see six-time champion Serena face Russian 21st seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Slovak 19th seed Dominika Cibulkova, who is due to get married on Saturday, meets unseeded Elena Vesnina of Russia.
Venus, who won the last of her seven Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon in 2008, is back in the last-four of a Grand Slam for the first time since the 2010 US Open.
Eight-time Wimbledon finalist Venus trails 3-2 in her five career meetings with 28-year-old Kerber, who won their only meeting on grass in the 2012 Olympics at Wimbledon.
“Oh wow, what a tough day on the court. It seemed she was going to win the tie-break but somehow I walked out with the set,” Venus said.
“She was on fire, but when you can walk to the net as the winner that’s the dream.
“I love playing the game. When you are winning matches it makes it that much sweeter.
“You can’t always have these big moments. I guess if you are Serena Williams it happens a lot, but for Venus Williams this is an awesome day.”
The first set tiebreak was key for Venus on Tuesday as she over-turned a 2/5 deficit before Shvedova’s game fell apart in th second.
Kerber, meanwhile, is now in sight of becoming the new world number one -- although she needs to win the title while seeing Serena fail to make the semi-finals.
“I think we are both really good returners. It’s always tough to play against Simona. I won the last point and that’s what counts,” said the German left-hander.
Kerber now has 33 match wins in 2016, joint-best with Cibulkova.
“I have had a great year so far. I think I am playing my best tennis. Hopefully I can play a few more matches here,” she said
The 28-year-old Kerber, who also made the semi-finals in 2012, came out on top in a big-hitting battle with Halep, who was a semi-finalist in 2014.
The first set alone saw nine breaks of serve in 12 games with Kerber squandering leads of 3-1 and 5-3 before her Romanian opponent double-faulted on set point.
Kerber was 4-2 and 5-3 in front in the second before the tenacious Halep fought back to reach the tiebreak in a set which featured four more breaks.
But Kerber dominated the tiebreak, going to match point when Halep was bamboozled by a net cord and then taking victory off a backhand error.
*Agence France-Presse
Doubles pair stage protest after toilet break denied
Pablo Cuevas and playing partner Marcel Granollers held a sit-down protest at Wimbledon after they received warnings for threatening to urinate in a can and blasting a ball out of the court when the Uruguayan was refused a toilet break.
The 15th-seeded pair were knocked out of the men’s doubles tournament on Monday when they lost a controversial third round clash 6-3 4-6 6-4 3-6 14-12 to Jonny Marray and Adil Shamasdin.
Britain’s Marray sympathised with his opponents, feeling the situation could have been handled better by umpire Aurelie Tourte, while calling for toilet breaks to be added if matches went into a fifth set.
“You have to take bad calls on the chin at some point. I went to the bathroom twice during the match and obviously the fifth set was a long one,” Marray told British media.
“I think you should be allowed an extra toilet break if it’s five sets. You have to respect the officials regardless of whatever happened in the match. You can have a word or two but they’re trying to do a job and you have to respect that.”
Shamasdin believed that Tourte had crumbled under pressure after making several early errors in the match.
“I don’t think the chair umpire really had the match controlled. She made a few mistakes early on at both ends. We were all on her and she was definitely flustered,” the 34-year-old Canadian said. “I don’t think she handled it correctly.”
* Reuters
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On the court Tuesday
Serena and Venus Williams can move closer to a nostalgic Wimbledon final reunion when the sisters take part in the quarter-finals.
The Williams siblings have reigned supreme at the All England Club for over 15 years, collecting 11 titles between them and appearing in a combined 16 finals. Four of those finals have been all-Williams affairs, but the last came in 2009.
• More: Tuesday's Wimbledon order of play
World number one Serena, with six Wimbledon crowns to her credit, will play Russian 21st seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the last eight after the defending champion romped to a 7-5, 6-0 victory over Russian 13th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova.
Five-time champion Venus takes on Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova after becoming the oldest Wimbledon women’s quarter-finalist for 22 years. With the draw opening up in favour of the Williams family, Serena admitted she would love to see her sister on the other side of the net on Saturday.
“It’s great. I say this constantly. I feel like she’s my best opponent, my toughest opponent,” said Serena, who beat Venus in the Wimbledon fourth round and the US Open quarter-finals last year. “She was playing great last year. She’s been doing a lot of improvements. That’s been really good for her and super encouraging for me.”
Serena, who leads 16-11 in the sisters’ head-to-head record, said she hasn’t discussed the prospect of playing in the final yet because she doesn’t want to lose focus.
“Not yet. I have to play Pavlyuchenkova, who plays really tough tennis. Honestly, I’m just focused on that match,” said Serena, who has won all five of her meetings with the Russian. “I’ve lost to players that have never beaten me in the past in some big situations. I definitely don’t want that to happen.”
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