Kerber’s clash with Williams is a repeat of this year’s Australian Open final.
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Defeat ended a 100 per cent record in Wimbledon singles semi-finals for Williams, after eight previous successes.
Since winning last year’s Wimbledon title she has proved surprisingly fallible, losing in the semi-finals of the US Open to Roberta Vinci when a calendar Grand Slam loomed.
The problem that she had was that Kerber was now in fantastic form to hold her next service game from 0-30 down to go 3-1 in front in the set.
The evergreen Venus has long since had to fend off questions about when she will retire from a sport which she has served so well over the years. Venus is a five-time champion at the grass-court tournament, but she hadn’t made it this far since at Wimbledon since 2009, or at any major since the 2010 U.S. Open.
And the eighth seed looked tired throughout, dropping her serve four times in the first set and also in the first game of the second.
Vesnina was playing in her first ever Grand Slam singles semifinal, and had never beaten Williams over the course of her pro career, which began all the way back in 2002.
The two semi-finals lasted a total of just two hours, which prompted a question at Serena’s post-match press conference about whether women deserved equal prize money.
When is the men’s singles final at Wimbledon? .
Russia’s Elena Vesnina on what it feels like to be on the other side of the net to Serena Williams.
Williams already won the first set 6-2.
She never gave Vesnina a chance to pull off the sort of semifinal stunner that Vinci managed last year in NY, when she stopped Williams from completing the first calendar-year Grand Slam since Graf did it in 1988.
“She was in a great mood and her serve was working really good for her”, said Vesnina, whose record dropped to 0-5 against Williams.
Prize money is tennis is a much maligned subject and Novak Djokovic, the male world number and the 11-time Grand Slam victor, fueled the debate in March with his controversial views on the equal pay.
World number one Serena Williams cruised into Saturday’s Wimbledon final after she beat Elena Vesnina 6-2 6-0. Serena says the feat is “a wonderful accomplishment”, but she wants more. “She’s a champion and she won so many times here”. A year later, Serena again triumphed. The 34-year-old who toppled Maria Sharapova to be ranked as the highest paid female athlete, has also spoken about the pay disparity in the past. It would have been their ninth meeting in a Grand Slam title match, and fifth at Wimbledon, but first in seven years.
The younger Williams took to Centre Court first and continued her string of dominant performances.
Angelique Kerber takes first blood against Venus Williams in the first set, as the pair goes on to split the first four games for a 2-2 tie.
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The winners will play in Saturday’s final.
