There was some consolation for Venus when she and Serena beat Russian pair Elena Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova 7-6(1) 4-6 6-2 to book their place in the women’s doubles semi-finals.
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Serena, playing in her 32nd Grand Slam semi-final, blasted last-four debutant Vesnina off the sun-kissed Centre Court in front of Prince William’s wife Kate watching from up in the Royal Box.
The top-seeded American will be taking nothing for granted, having seen her bid to match Graf’s modern era record of grand slam titles stuck one short on 21 for a year, but it was a menacing show of strength, albeit against an overawed opponent.
“I’m very happy I was really focused”.
“I feel that we’ve found this”. “It’s never easy out there, every point you have to fight for”, she said. Asked on whether she still felt any nerves heading into her twenty-seventh Grand Slam Finals, Williams replied: “I think I’ve been training my mind for years and years and I’ve been preparing for this moment for decades”. It was an outstanding win for the world number one who won in just 48 minutes which marks as the shortest Wimbledon semifinal.
“It’s about holding the trophy and winning”.
Vesnina, who was due to face Serena again in the women’s doubles later Thursday, admitted she just wasn’t good enough. “We’ve had a lot of tough matches before and on this surface I knew she could bring it today”, said Serena, who will be playing her ninth Wimbledon final.
After a running cross-court forehand victor capped the 19-stroke exchange that ended her victory, Kerber tossed aside her racket and dropped to her knees at the baseline. Thursday’s contest saw Serena race to a 4-0 lead in the first set before 29-year-old Vesnina got on the board. Venus Williams manages to save set point twice, but falls to Kerber in the tenth game 40-30 after a thirty-six minute first set. It was still a three-set match.
Speaking about her match against Venus, the Kerber admitted that her plan was to wear the 36-year-old down. “She was really enjoying herself”.
The defending champion has now reached the final of all three Grand Slams this year but is still waiting for the win which will draw her level with Steffi Graf on 22 major titles.
But she then dumped a forehand into the net on Kerber’s second set point, and it looked a long way back from there.
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Venus Williams is planning to return to Wimbledon next year to make her 20th appearance confident in the belief that there is no such thing in life as impossible. She had raced through her six matches at Wimbledon without dropping a set, now has WTA tour-best 34 match wins in 2016 and is guaranteed to rise to a career-high second in the world rankings next week. The men’s semi-finals on Friday and the women’s final on Saturday each cost £145. So this is why I was a little bit nervous when I went there because I know that I have to play good tennis against Venus.
