13 facts about Serena, semifinalists at Wimbledon
WIMBLEDON, England – It’s down to the final four women at Wimbledon:
10th-seeded Angelique Kerber, 12thseeded Jelena Ostapenko, 13th-seeded Julia Goerges and 25th-seeded Serena Williams.
As they head into the semifinals Thursday, some interesting facts related to their final four appearances.
❚ For the first time since 2015 all four women’s semifinalists are among the 32 seeds. That has happened only because the Wimbledon seeding committee chose to seed seven-time champion Serena Williams in the No. 25 spot despite her tour ranking of No. 181.
❚ For the third time in Wimbledon history, none of the semifinalists are among the top 10 seeds. This also happened in 2007 and 2013.
❚ At No. 181, Williams is the lowestranked player to reach the Wimbledon semifinals. The previous holder of that record was Croatian Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, who was No. 134 when she was a semifinalist in 1999.
❚ At 36 years, 291 days, Serena is the sixth-oldest women to contest a Grand Slam tournament semifinal in the Open era. The oldest was Billie Jean King, who occupies the top two spots when she reached the 1982 and 1983 Wimbledon semifinals at 38 years, 224 days and 39 years, 223 days, respectively.
❚ Williams has won 19 consecutive matches at Wimbledon, having won her last two times here in 2015 and 2016. She was on maternity leave last year.
❚ She has hit fewer unforced errors at
84 than the other three semifinalists, with Kerber at 94, Ostapenko at 115 and Goerges at 116.
❚ This is the first time in the Open era of Wimbledon history that two German women — Kerber and Goerges — have advanced to the semifinals. The last time two German women appeared in a Grand Slam semifinal was in 1993 when Steffi Graf and Anke Huber featured in the French Open final four. Kerber and Goerges are also the only semifinalists to already win a title in 2018: Goerges won at Auckland, Kerber at Sydney.
❚ This marks Kerber’s seventh time playing in a Grand Slam semifinal, which puts her in a shared fourth place with Caroline Wozniacki and Victoria Azarenka for how many Grand Slam semifinals active players have contested. Serena Williams heads the list with
35, Venus Williams is at 23 and Maria Sharapova is at 20.
❚ Kerber is the only one of the four semifinalists to already reach the final four at a Grand Slam this year, which she did at the Australian Open.
❚ Goerges is the only one of the four semifinalists who hasn’t won a Grand Slam trophy. Serena Williams has the Open era record for Grand Slam singles titles won at 23. Kerber won the 2016 Australian and U.S. Opens and was also a finalist here in 2016, losing to Williams. Ostapenko won her first Grand Slam trophy at the 2017 French Open.
❚ Goerges has spent the most time on court over five matches en route to the semifinals at 601 minutes, which translates to just one minute over 10 hours. Next in line is Kerber’s 7 hours, 40 minutes on court.
❚ Ostapenko, the lone Wimbledon junior champion left in the draw, is attempting to become the ninth Wimbledon girls champion to reach a women’s final here. The last was Eugenie Bouchard, who lost out on the title to Petra Kvitova in 2014.
❚ Ostapenko is the only semifinalist to come through the first five matches without dropping a set. The Latvian’s also lost the fewest number of games en route to the semifinals at 32. Julia Goerges has lost three sets, and Kerber and Williams lost only one set.