Venus Williams Upsets Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon
Posted by Aaress Lawless on Jul 4, 2007 | Print |
Venus Williams kicked off the Fourth of July in a thrilling fashion with a straight sets upset of second seed Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon.
In less than ninety minutes, Venus Williams dismissed 2004 champion Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-3.
A completely different Venus Williams took to the court today against Maria Sharapova compared to the one who played against Alla Kudryavtseva and Akiko Morigami earlier in the tournament.
Instead of hustling for a three set win because of her unstable serve, Venus protected her service game so well that Sharapova never even saw a break point.
The aggression that was missing in her opening wins was brilliantly displayed on court as she kept the pressure on Maria throughout the match, even forcing nineteen break points, of which she converted five.
The biggest drama of the match came in the third game of the second set when the players were tied at 1-all each. The game took over twenty minutes to complete, with thirteen deuces before Sharapova finally took the game after fending off seven break points from Venus.
Now that Venus is through to the quarterfinals, she will next face Svetlana Kuznetsova.
Ironically only minutes before today’s fourth round match was completed, the ITF announced the teams for next week’s Russia/USA Fed Cup semifinal in Vermont. Venus, Serena, Maria, and Svetlana will be leading the singles competition for their respective nations.
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Wilson Spaulding | Jul 4, 2007 | Reply
From this corner, going into the match the edge was given to Sharapova. Like Mauresmo, Maria had been playing competent if not spectacular tennis. On the other hand, Venus was in an erractic phase. She was winning but with difficulty (three shaky sets against Morigami). She comes out against Sharapova and she’s absolutely no-nonsense: excellent court coverage, very precise, accurate shots, a fearsome, whipping forehand. It was as though the fierce determination of Serena had suddenly entered Venus’ body. And Sharapova, showing only a glimmer of her winning form, had no answer for the blistering Williams groundstrokes. Keep it up Venus.