Kerber crashes out; Venus makes it to quarterfinals
WIMBLEDON Garbine Muguruza shocks top seed; Williams becomes oldest quarterfinalist in 23 years
Angelique Kerber crashed out of Wimbledon and lost her hold on the world number one ranking, while fivetime champion Venus Williams became the oldest All England Club quarter-finalist in 23 years on Monday.
Kerber was beaten 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 by Spanish 14th seed Garbine Muguruza as the German’s fourth round exit extended a miserable run for last year’s Wimbledon runner-up. The 29-yearold, who lost to Serena Williams in the final 12 months ago, has failed to make the last eight at any of this year’s three Grand Slams.
Kerber had taken the top ranking from Serena in March, but her Wimbledon defeat leaves her with a dismal 0-9 record against top 20 opponents in 2017.
She will be replaced at number one by either Karolina Pliskova or Simona Halep.
Halep takes on Victoria Azarenka in the last 16 later on Monday and the Romanian world number two will be guaranteed top spot if she makes the semi-finals.
If Halep loses before the last four, then Czech world number three Pliskova will be the new number one despite losing in the second round.
Muguruza, the 2015 Wimbledon runner-up, goes on to play Russian seventh seed Svetlana Kuznetsova for a place in the semi-finals.
With only two women’s matches scheduled for Wimbledon’s two main show-courts on Monday, Kerber was exiled to the less grand Court Two. It was a decision that brought criticism for Wimbledon chiefs and Kerber was visibly frustrated by the state of surface after she slipped on several barren patches of grass on the baseline. Despite her complaints, Kerber managed to take the first set, but Muguruza hit her stride as she took the second.
Kerber twice led by a break in the final set, but couldn’t close out the victory as Muguruza showed she has been absorbing the lessons of her coach Conchita Martinez, the only Spanish woman to win Wimbledon back in 1994.
Williams didn’t hang around as she crushed 19-year-old Croatian Ana Konjuh 6-3, 6-2 in 64 minutes on Centre Court.
Williams made her Grand Slam debut at the 1997 French Open, seven months before Konjuh was born. And at 37 years and 29 days, Venus is Wimbledon’s oldest female quarter-finalist since Martina Navratilova in 1994.
Seven-time major winner Venus, who clinched the last of her Wimbledon titles in 2008, will hope to emulate Navratilova, who went on to reach the final 23 years ago. Williams plays French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko for a place in the semi-finals.
Ostapenko advanced to her first Wimbledon quarter-final after finally converting her eighth match point to defeat Elina Svitolina 6-3, 7-6 (8/6).
Latvian 13th seed Ostapenko, the 2014 junior Wimbledon champion, squandered seven match points in the second set before eventually seeing off the Ukrainian world number five to make just her second last eight appearance at a major.
The 20-year-old’s triumph in Paris last month made her only the third player born in the 1990s to win a Grand Slam.
Kuznetsova reached her first Wimbledon quarter-final in 10 years with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Polish ninth seed Agnieszka Radwanska. Kuznetsova, a former US and French Open champion, crushed 37 winners in her 14th victory in 18 meetings with Radwanska.
The 32-year-old has never made it to the Wimbledon semifinals and last reached that stage at a Grand Slam in the 2009 French Open.
Slovakia’s Magdalena Rybarikova is into her maiden Grand Slam quarter-final after a 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 win over Croatian qualifier Petra Martic.
Rybarikova, 28, had failed to make the last eight in all 35 of her previous Grand Slam appearances, losing in the Wimbledon first round for seven successive years between 2008 and 2014.
Danish fifth seed Caroline Wozniacki was sent packing from Wimbledon on Monday, succumbing 7-6(4) 6-4 to the relentless big-hitting of American Coco Vandeweghe.
The last-16 match pitted Vandeweghe’s power against Wozniacki’s consistency. The American, ranked 25, was more aggressive and took more risks, and her strategy paid off - she fired 38 winners across the net compared with her opponent’s 16.
There was little between the players in the first set, which Vandeweghe edged in the tiebreak, cheered on by her Australian coach Pat Cash, a former Wimbledon champion.
She closed out the match with a break at the end of the second set, forcing an error from the 26-year-old Wozniacki with a ferocious cross-court forehand.
By reaching the quarter-finals, the 25-year-old Vandeweghe has matched her best performance at the All England Club. She will face Slovakia’s Magdalena Rybarikova, ranked 87. Former number one Martina Hingis is not impressed by the current crop of young players whose main focus is on hitting harder, rather than developing an all-round game, the Swiss veteran said.
Hingis became world number one in 1997, at the age of 16, and won her first Australian Open, Wimbledon and U.S Open singles titles that year.
She won 40 singles trophies before her initial retirement at 22 and returned for a year in 2006, making a full return in 2013. “The education, in tennis terms, was better,” Hingis told the Times.
“The age rule was different then, now it’s stricter (the WTA limits the number of tournaments
There are a lot of players who don’t really strike me. They have a good match or two but I’m like ‘OK, is there something more in this player that I could see is going to be a future champion?’