Maria Sharapova admits that she had to dig deep to beat Coco Vandeweghe in the Wimbledon quarter-finals.
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Vandeweghe was having the tournament of her life – she took out three seeds en route to her first Grand Slam quarterfinal, including the No. 6 seed, Lucie Safarova, the biggest win of her career.
The American began to find some more range and forced Sharapova to play defensive, but there was little she could do on the serve, as the Russian jammed some serves down the tee.
“She (the umpire) said she didn’t believe she was doing it during the motion”.
Sharapova was well below her best on Centre Court, making 23 unforced errors, serving 10 double faults and hitting only 19 winners. “To come back and win in five definitely gives me great satisfaction and confidence for the next challenge”, Djokovic said.
The Russian 28-year-old prevailed 6-3 6-7 (3/7) 6-2, before coming under fire from her opponent for unsporting behaviour, Vandeweghe claiming Sharapova was moving around in her eye-line as she shaped to serve.
“You have to give everything you have on a special occasion on a special court”. I regrouped in the third and got it done.
Sharapova, the 2004 Wimbledon champion as a 17-year-old, brushed off the accusations, saying did not hear any complaints and did not feel she had done anything different to usual.
Still looking for a second Wimbledon title, Maria Sharapova has reached the quarterfinals at the All England Club.
Before she can think about extending that dominant run against Sharapova, Williams – chasing a 21st major title and potential calendar Grand Slam – must see off Azarenka.
The 20th-seeded Spaniard, who reached the quarterfinals at the last two French Opens, advanced Tuesday by beating Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland 7-5, 6-3 on Court 1.
But the No.4-seeded Sharapova was just too focused, taking the momentum back straight away and reeling off the last three games to finish it off after two hours and 45 minutes, 6-3, 6-7(3), 6-2.
In fact, two of them – against the bare logic of the seedings – reached the quarterfinals Monday.
The 21-year-old, born in Venezuela but raised as a tennis prodigy in Barcelona, had never been made the semi-finals of a Grand Slam.
Williams won the Australian Open and the French Open this year.
“It is just incredible”.
“Overall I’m happy I was able to take that loss and move up a few steps further this year”. “I had a really tough match previous year against [Angelique] Kerber”. When the tougher, longer rallies happened, I was on the winning end of it more times than I wasn’t.
“It is very hard to make the last four of Wimbledon so to achieve this so I am very proud”.
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Muguruza will face either Agnieszka Radwanska or Madison Keys in the semifinals on Thursday.
