Weeds Entangle Williams Sisters on Wimbledon Grass: Tournament of Upsets

Going into this year’s grass court Grand Slam tournament at Wimbledon, the Williams sisters were strong favorites to advance to the finals in both women’s singles and in women’s doubles. They hold the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in the world in singles, they’re the No. 1 doubles team in world and grass is arguably their strongest surface. On top of that, for the last 10 years, there’s only been one Wimbledon final (2006) without one or both of the sisters being in contention for the title.

But as of yesterday, that prognostication has taken a turn for the worse.

The grass this go round is more like entangling weeds to the sisters. Five-time champion Venus fell yesterday in a 6-2,6-3 shocker to Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria who’s ranked 82 in the world, and today the usually unbeatable Williams doubles team fell victim to Russians Elena Vesnina and Vera Zvonareva in a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 upset. All of tennis-dom is abuzz about the unexpected defeats.

As a consolation, Serena remains in the running for the singles title thanks to her powerful ground strokes and booming serves.  She seems to be a shoo-in, considering all of her most formidable oponents (Kim Clijsters, Jusine Henin, Jelena Jankovic) tumbled out of the tournament before reaching the semifinals and she just beat the only remaining close competitor, China’s Li Na.  Adding to multiple women’s upsets, on the men’s side, the great Roger Federer was bounced earlier today by Thomas Berdych 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 and American hopeful Andy Roddick bit the dust to China’s Lu Yen-Hsun, also ranked 82nd in the world, 4-6, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-4). 

Those Wimbledon weeds seem to be choking out the best in the bunch.  A changing of the guard?  Maybe, but the ferocious three-time champ Serena lives to fights another round for her 13th slam title. She’ll be on centre court tomorrow Thursday, July 1, against Czech Petra Kvitova. –gerald radford