WIMBLEDON:THE CAVALRY charge of tarpaulins has become an all too familiar sight at Wimbledon in recent days. The weather hasn't played ball and periodically yesterday neither did the players. The fractured nature of proceedings meant that patience was a requirement, common to players and spectators, at least to those who didn't have the roof of Centre Court under which to shelter.
Still the schedule limped along to the point where all five outstanding men’s fourth-round matches were resolved, all in favour of the lower-seeded player with the exception of German Florian Mayer’s victory over Richard Gasquet.
Six-time Wimbledon winner Roger Federer will lead the way on Centre Court today when he takes on another man in his 30s, Mikhail Youhzny. It’ll then be time for some jingoistic fervour as Scotland’s Andy Murray tries to take another step towards allowing the ghost of Fred Perry to be reinterred having roamed the All England Club since 1936.
He faces the in-form David Ferrer, a man who has won four singles titles this season and who beat Murray in the quarter-finals of the recent French Open at Roland Garros. Federer and Murray can be absolutely certain of finishing their matches but the same cannot be said for number-one seed Novak Djokovic and Jo Wilfried Tsonga, who must negotiate tough contests on Court One and a forecast that promises still more rain.
In the normal course of events matches start and finish on the same court but there is precedence for switching and that’s likely to be enforced.
Traditionally the women’s quarter-finals are given primacy on the Tuesday of the second week and undoubtedly the day’s most eagerly-anticipated match-up pitted the defending champion Petra Kvitova against Serena Williams, winner of 13 Grand Slam titles.
The American had won their two previous meetings including a Wimbledon semi-final two years ago. A contest of this ilk was always likely to be decided by narrow margins and so it proved. Williams took the first set with a single break, in the sixth game. The second appeared to be meandering towards a tie-break when Kvitova manufactured her only break point of the match.
She couldn’t avail of it, undone by another service winner from her opponent, and in the very next game, leading 30-0, she buckled under a four-point Williams’ assault, the last of which was conceded when netting a backhand volley.
Williams broke and Kvitova’s hopes were bankrupt. In serving for the match the American thundered down three aces – from a match tally of 13 – to foreclose on Kvitova’s reign.
The Czech girl agreed that Williams was now the player to beat in the tournament but stopped short of calling the task impossible. “I can’t say impossible. She’s human. She’s a great champion, because she knows what she needs to play in the important points. It’s really tough to beat her.”
On a day of leaden skies, Kvitova chose to pursue a silver lining in defeat. “I know that I have a lot to build on. I hope I can be stronger and I can improve everything in my game. I’m looking forward for the Olympics here.”
Williams was reasonably pleased with her performance, saluting a marked improvement on return of serve, an area that she struggled with in her two previous matches. She also spoke about tweaking her mental approach to the game.
“Well, you know, you can’t play a defending Wimbledon champion or Grand Slam champion and not elevate your game. I had to weed out the riff-raff and just get serious. I had a good talk with my dad. He motivated me and my sister , as well.
“It was great. They got me really motivated to do better; be the player I know I can. I just took to heart what everyone said. I really prayed about it, just to have calmness of mind and just go forward and do the best I can do, whether that’s winning or losing.”
The most entertaining quarter-final for sheer drama was the topsy-turvy Teutonic tussle in which eighth-seed Angelique Kerber beat compatriot Sabine Lisicki 6-3, 6-7, 7-5. Momentum slewed one way then another with Kerber winning the first set and enjoying match points in the second before losing it in a tie-break.
Lisicki, who had bludgeoned number one seed Maria Sharapova into submission in the previous round, engineered a position in the third set where she was serving at 5-3 for the match but the precision that had taken her to that point vanished as she began to spray her ground-strokes to all four points of the compass. Her serve, such a potent weapon, misfired.
Gerber rallied to take the next four games and the match. The nature of the contest is exemplified in two contrasting statistics. Lisicki hit 57 winners to her opponents 19 but made 50 unforced errors to Gerber’s 13.
The latter admitted her inability to take her match points in the second set saw her briefly revisit her recent defeat at Eastbourne in which she succumbed to the same failing.
“Yes, I was thinking about that but I just tried to forget about the match points. It wasn’t easy.The challenge in the third set where I was serving at 4-5; that changed everything. I think that saved my life in this match.”
