As the quarterfinal round of Wimbledon approaches, world no. 4 Maria Sharapova will be facing a more daunting challenge in her path to the semi-finals as she takes on Coco Vandeweghe.
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The Russian overcame her American opponent 6-3 6-7 (3-7) 6-2 and will play either Serena Williams or Victoria Azarenka in this week’s last four. In the first tiebreaker, a 97 miles per hour ace and an unreturnable serve delivered her the set.
More complicated is Vandeweghe’s family name, which is her mother’s maiden name (Tauna is the daughter of Ernie Vandeweghe).
More breaks followed, which were 3-1 in Sharapova’s favour, meaning that it was her that booked her place in the semi-finals at Wimbledon for a fifth time.
Vandeweghe, the only unseeded player in the last eight, showed plenty of grit, not least when breaking as Sharapova served for the match at 5-4 in the second set, whipping up Centre Court crowd in the process. “I would more say it’s on the lines of it’s been a while coming”.
But Sharapova is not underestimating the younger competitor and according to Stevegtennis.com, she said: “I think it’s been a tremendous effort for her to get to this stage”.
Vandeweghe will face Maria Sharapova, a ex- Wimbledon champion.
Sharapova is bidding for her sixth grand slam and the first since her victory over Simona Halep in last year’s French Open final.
CoCo Vandeweghe became the second American woman to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals Monday by upsetting French Open runner-up Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic in straight sets. Keys is playing in her first Wimbledon quarterfinal, and looks to avenge that loss from two years ago.
Americans Madison Keys and Coco Vandeweghe continued to impress on Monday, as each won their respective fourth-round match at the All-England Club to advance to the Wimbledon quarterfinals. It’s the first time that has happened since 2004, when Serena Williams, Lindsay Davenport and Jennifer Capriati accomplished the feat. So far, she hasn’t played a woman ranked higher than No. 78 in the world, and yet her matches have been a struggle. Since 2012, the world no. 3 hasn’t gone beyond the fourth round but this win gets her into the final eight once again and a chance to capture her second Wimbledon crown.
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Richard Gasquet wasn’t happy about wasting two match points against Nick Kyrgios, smashing his racket in anger after dropping the third set of their fourth-round match. “I thought it was one of my worst matches that I played the whole tournament so far”. So that helped me tremendously to really grow myself as a person, as an athlete, and I feel different than I was before my injury.
