Serena Williams has Victoria Azarenka in her sights in the pick of today’s quarter-finals, a day after the No 1 seed extinguished sister Venus’s Wimbledon hopes.
Azarenka, a two-times Australian Open winner, has lost 16 of her 19 matches against Williams and they last met in the third round at Roland Garros in May.
Williams has yet to lose a slam match to the Belarusian and will be favourite to reach the last four and a possible showdown with Maria Sharapova.
Sharapova follows them on to Centre Court against the unseeded American Coco Vandeweghe, who caused an upset yesterday by knocking out No 6 seed Luice Safarova to reach her first Grand Slam quarter-final.
Sharapova laboured to a 6-4 6-4 win over another unseeded opponent, the Kazakh Zarina Diyas whose groundstrokes caused the Russian problems.
The No 4 seed is yet to drop a set here, but she will be wary of Vandeweghe’s serve with the New Yorker firing 37 aces this tournament.
Madison Keys plays Agnieszka Radwanska first on Court One after the 20-year-old American reached her first Wimbledon quarter-final with 3-6 6-4 6-1 victory over qualifier Olga Govortsova.
Keys, who is coached by former Wimbledon champion Lindsay Davenport, stormed into the Australian Open semi-final in January, but will have to overcome No 13 seed Radwanska to equal that here.
A 2012 finalist at the All England Club, Radwanska beat Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic 7-5 6-4 yesterday to continue her recent fine form on grass.
Garbine Muguruza is the first female Spaniard in the quarter-finals since Conchita Martinez in 2001 and she took out Caroline Wozniacki 6-4 6-4 to set up today’s match with the Swiss Timea Bacsinszky.
It is Bacsinszky’s first Wimbledon quarter-final and the No 15 seed, who quit tennis in 2011 only to return in 2013, showed her powers of recovery to beat Monica Niculescu 1-6 7-5 6-2.
Novak Djokovic resumes his quarter-final with Kevin Anderson on Court One after bad light halted play yesterday.
The No 1 seed fought back from two sets down against the 6ft 8in South African to level the match at two sets all.
Feature image courtesy of Wimbledon, via Youtube, with thanks
