SERENA MADE TO GO DISTANCE AGAIN

Serena Williams took on continuous drizzle and a feisty opponent and defeated both on her way to the quarter-finals today. She faced the wild card Yaroslava Shvedova, whose place in tennis history is secure after the extraordinary golden set she won – 24 straight points without reply – in Saturday’s round three. Kazakhstan’s finest took her time to get into gear today, although when she did she made this into a splendid match which saw some great tennis from both women. But at the age of 30, Serena understands that time may be short if she is to add to her tally of 13 Grand Slam titles, and eventually she forced victory 6-1, 2-6, 7-5 in one hour and 54 minutes. She will play the defending champion Petra Kvitova for place in the last four.

Some people call this day Magic Monday in the tennis calendar, when Wimbledon schedules the last 16 of both the men’s and women’s tournaments. Alas for Shvedova, in the first set she seemed to have left all her magic behind on Saturday, when she took that history-making set from Roland Garros runner-up Sara Errani. Early on today, Shvedova’s main problem was getting on the scoreboard at all, as the fearsome Williams service was functioning at full throttle. It was a reminder that Shvedova was not the only one setting records on Saturday – Serena delivered 23 aces during her third round victory over Zheng Jie, the most at any women’s match at Wimbledon since IBM began recording such matters in 1992. When she took today’s first set 6-1, it seemed Williams’ plan for coping with her widely known dislike of No.2 Court was to spend as little time on it as possible.

http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/news/articles/2012-07-02/201207021341235561624.html