Women’s quarterfinals: No. 1 Serena Williams beat No. 21 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, No. 4 Angelique Kerber beat No. 5 Simona Halep, No. 8 Venus Williams beat Yaroslava Shvedova, Elena Vesnina beat No. 19 Dominika Cibulkova.
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On Thursday she faces Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber for a place in her ninth Wimbledon final and first since 2009.
Top seed Serena beat 21st seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russian Federation 6-4, 6-4 to reach the last four while Venus beat Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 7-6 (5), 6-2 to advance.
“I haven’t gone through what she’s been through but just being around her, she doesn’t talk about it and she does hide it if she’s having a bad day”, David Witt, a former men’s pro who coaches her, told CNN.
Venus Williams could certainly lament “Why me?” and wonder “What if” after Sjogren’s syndrome robbed her of some of the best years of her tennis life.
Seven times Venus has taken her championship bows at Grand Slams.
Whether it was the transformation to an indoor court, the strategy session the break allowed her to have with coach Patrick Mouratoglou or, as Williams suggested, simply the chance to calm down, she completely dominated the rest of the way, taking the last nine games to beat the 13th-seeded Kuznetsova 7-5, 6-0.
Venus Williams is one match away from another Wimbledon final.
The American finished the match with an 11th ace.
“What a day it was against an opponent who was just on fire”, she said.
“I am just trying to win my match. With everything she’s been through, it’s built a ton of character in her – and in me just by being around her”.
Here are two sisters, 16 years after they first met at Wimbledon, four finals on Centre Court played since then and now they’re two wins from making it five.
“We’re just happy to be in the semi-finals”.
Struggling to deal with the physical and mental damage inflicted by the condition, Williams failed to make the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam for four years.
“I’m admiring her. I’m always watching”.
If Serena triumphs at Wimbledon for the seventh time, she would win a 22nd major to tie Steffi Graf’s Open Era record.
She said: “The wins and the losses, they all lead to these big moments”.
Kerber has a 3-2 career edge against Williams, but they haven’t faced each other since 2014. “You can’t always have this big moment”. “I didn’t think I was going to be here at 36”.
She’s 36 now, a half-dozen years removed from her last such run. “I was most likely kicking butt six years ago, if I was in the semis or the finals”. If you’re Serena Williams, I guess that happens a lot.
Vesnina’s power and accuracy on Wimbledon’s Court One saw her comfortably ease past the Slovak, who may have had to postpone her wedding on Saturday (Sunday NZT) had she made it through. And Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic plays France’s Lucas Pouille.
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The pair returned for the final set on Tuesday, which 2010 Wimbledon runner-up Berdych won 6-3, claiming victory on his eighth match point.
