Reuters
London, July 5: Venus Williams vanquished Yaroslava Shvedova 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 in a brutal baseline shoot-out at Wimbledon Tuesday to reach her first Grand Slam semifinal for six years.
In a scrappy match, the five-time champion – the oldest woman in the draw at 36 – drew on her experience to see off the Kazakh player contesting her first Wimbledon quarterfinal.
There was little to choose between the two as they slugged it out in the first set, with neither finding much rhythm. But Shvedova’s challenge crumbled after she narrowly lost a tie-break she had led 5-2.
Venus will now meet Germany’s fourth-seeded Angelique Kerber who outslugged Romania’s Simona Halep in a quarterfinal of the counter-punchers. The German won 7-5, 7-6 (7-2) win.
Meanwhile the younger of the Williams sisters Serena joined Venus in the last four stage with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. She will take on unseeded Elena Vesnina, a 6-2, 6-2 winners over Dominika Cibulkova.
In the only men’s match played on the day, Tomas Berdych won a fifth-set shootout over Czech compatriot Jiri Vesely for a 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (8-6), 6-7 (9-11), 6-3 victory.
They had left the contest level Monday when the umpire called time, much to the frustration of 10th seed Berdych, who has suffered a string of delays at the tournament and tried to get the match moved to Centre Court to be finished under the floodlit roof.
A pumped-up Vesely, 22, had the momentum Monday, snatching a 71 minute fourth set on a tie-break to force the decider. But it was 2010 finalist Berdych, 30, who seized the initiative in the fifth, breaking Vesely’s first service game.
Berdych will play 22-year-old Frenchman Lucas Pouille, seeded 32, in the last eight.
