Intriguing day; Venus, 37, wins
LONDON — Venus Williams, 37, is the oldest woman in the Wimbledon quarterfinals since 1994. Johanna Konta is the first British woman to make it that far since 1984. Angelique Kerber’s loss means she’ll relinquish the No. 1 ranking.
Jelena Ostapenko needed eight match points for her latest win — and latest proof that her recent French Open title was no fluke. Magdalena Rybarikova, a Slovakian ranked 87th, reached her first quarterfinal in 36 Grand Slam tournaments.
Those were among the significant goings-on Monday in women’s fourth-round action at the All England Club, where another topic took hold: Why were so few of these matches played on the tournament’sbiggest courts?
“I mean, honestly, I didn’t think about that,” 13thseeded Ostapenko said, then quickly added: “But, I mean, yeah, I think I deserve to play on a better court than Court 12, I guess.”
The site of her 6-3, 7-6 (6) victory over No. 4 Elina Svitolina has a seating capacity of 1,065, making it only the fifth largest for the event.
Garbine Muguruza beat Kerber, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, at Court No. 2, with its 4,063 seats, in a matchup between the past two Wimbledon runners-up, two players with a combined three major championships, and the woman atop the WTA rankings (well, until next week).
While Kerber noted that scheduling is “not so easy” on the second Monday at Wimbledon — the only major with all men’s and women’s singles matches on one day — she added: “Of course, I was surprised.” Muguruza’s take? “I don’t want to make any problem. I’m so focused on what I do, I don’t care if I played on 13, 1, 5,” she said, then acknowledged: “I was expecting another court.”
All England Club chief executive Richard Lewis said scheduling decisions involve “some difficult choices.”
Lewis said one factor Monday was that “four of the all-time great male players” — Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray — were playing. Their matches were all on the tournament’s two principal courts.
Centre Court (nearly 15,000 seats) and No. 1 Court (more than 11,000) had two men’s matches and one women’s match.
“I wouldn’t say it’s favoritism,” Lewis said.
“In the end, it’s not about male-female,” he said. “It’s about which matches in the end are the ones that the public and broadcasters most of all would like to see.”
Five-time champion Williams played in the main stadium, winning 31 of 36 firstserve points while overpowering 27th-seeded Ana Konjuh of Croatia, 6-3, 6-2.
On No. 1 Court, Konta won, 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-4, against No. 21 Caroline Garcia of France. Not since Jo Durie 33 years ago has the host country had a woman in the quarterfinals.
Britain’s previous female champion was Virginia Wade in 1977.
“I’ve dreamed of it ever since I was a little girl — to be a Grand Slam champion,” said Konta, who had won just one match in five previ-