Rafael Nadal’s coach’s mood changed when he found out the world No. 1 was scheduled to play on uncovered Court One for his quarter-final against Mardy Fish yesterday.
“Court One? That’s the worst thing possible for us. If I could choose it would be more logical to play on Centre,” Toni Nadal told reporters after his nephew came through a hitting session following a scan on his foot injury.
That the defending champion can play at all is a relief to tennis fans after the images of a distressed Nadal during his fourth-round duel with Juan Martin del Potro and the Spaniard will have to be on peak form against the sharp-serving Fish, in a resumption of men’s singles play after a women’s quarter-final day on Tuesday in which Maria Sharapova’s play was the top news of the day.
Photo: EPA
Sharapova swaggered into the Wimbledon semi-finals with a formidable display every bit as spectacular as the thunderclaps that rattled the All England Club.
The Russian fifth seed, the stand-out name in an unfamiliar looking last eight, roared to a 6-1, 6-1 win over shell-shocked Dominika Cibulkova under Centre Court’s roof and now only wild-card Sabine Lisicki stands between Sharapova and her first final here since she won the tournament in 2004.
Lisicki continued her heart-warming run when she outlasted French livewire Marion Bartoli 6-4, 6-7, 6-1 to become the first German woman to reach the semis since Steffi Graf in 1999.
Both matches were played out in the slightly surreal atmosphere of a covered show court after Monday’s sticky heat gave way to rumbling storms.
Play was eventually possible on the roofless Court One where Czech Petra Kvitova beat Bulgaria’s Tsvetana Pironkova 6-3, 6-7, 6-2 in just more than two hours to set up a semi-final against fourth seed Victoria Azarenka.
Belarussian Azarenka reached her first Grand Slam semi-final when she thrashed 20-year-old Austrian Tamira Paszek 6-3, 6-1 in a match that started on Court One, but was switched to Centre Court after the rain returned.
Azarenka, whose on-court -decibel level has often eclipsed her tennis, said a talk with her mother earlier this year had helped her become a Grand Slam contender rather than a student.
“After the tournament in Doha, I didn’t really want to play tennis,” she told reporters. “I just wanted to go home and rest. My mom asked me: ‘Oh, what are you going to do?’ I said: ‘I’m going to study.’ She laughed out loud.”
Sharapova became the clear favorite for the title after Monday’s fourth-round carnage in which defending champion Serena Williams, her sister Venus, the five-time winner, and world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki all bowed out.
The broad-shouldered 24-year-old lived up to that billing with an unrelenting display of high-voltage tennis to demolish a player she towered above both in stature and class.
“I haven’t been at this stage in Wimbledon in a few years, so this feels great,” former world No. 1 Sharapova, who had not lasted beyond the quarter-finals at the grass-court Grand Slam since 2006, told reporters after her winning in an hour. “I would have loved for it not to have taken that long, but I’m not complaining. It’s the road that you sometimes have to take. It’s not always straight. There are a lot of zigzags.”
There were few zigzags against the overwhelmed Cibulkova, just straight-line speed as Sharapova thumped 23 clean winners and countless more unreturnable drives.
Even when 24th-ranked Cibulkova, who knocked out Wozniacki on Monday, earned a break point in the final game Sharapova simply cuffed a fizzing ace down the middle, a pinpoint shot that would have been appreciated by US Open golf champion Rory McIlroy, who watched from the Royal Box.
Impressive as it was, Sharapova’s match was never really a contest, unlike the humdinger that preceded it.
With torrential rain drumming loudly on the Centre Court roof, Lisicki and 2007 runner-up Bartoli went toe-to-toe and some before Bartoli’s reserves of energy finally ran out.
“My legs were cramping, my mind was working, but I ran out of gas and there’s nothing I could do,” said the 26-year-old, whose antics between points included frantic practice swings, sprinting on the spot and various skips, hops and slaps.
Lisicki missed five months last year with an ankle injury, slumping to 179th in the rankings from a high of 22nd in 2009 when she also reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon.
The bubbly German, who beat French Open champion Li Na in the second round, also suffered a health scare in Roland Garros where she was carried off on a stretcher following a second-round defeat by Vera Zvonareva.
There was nothing wrong with her on Tuesday, though, as she pummeled the tenacious Bartoli with massive serves and pounding groundstrokes to reach her first Grand Slam semi-final despite an attack of nerves when she served for the match at 5-4 in the second set.
“It just feels amazing to be in the semi-finals, especially after all I went through,” said Lisicki, who met Graf in Las Vegas last year.
She took the opening set in 42 minutes and recovered from a break down in the second to lead 5-4 with her potent serve to come. A netted backhand cost her the first match point, she then agonizingly hit the tape with an attempted drop shot, one of the few occasions she failed with her favorite stroke.
A third match point went begging when she fired a forehand wide and a revved-up Bartoli seized her moment to break back before leveling the match in the tiebreak.
A sweat-streaked Bartoli was visibly suffering with fatigue in the decider, however, and Lisicki ruthlessly ran her around as she powered to victory.
Also on Tuesday, the second-round mixed doubles match that was supposed to see Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and partner Paul Hanley of Australia face off against Max Mirnyi of Belarus and Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova was postponed to yesterday.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
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