High Flying Sabine Lisicki and her 2011 rhythm – Part Two
German’s Sabine Lisicki continued her incredible run of form on clay and reached the last four at the Reggio Emilia ITF event before losing to sixth seeded American Sloane Stephens.
Entering the Roland Garros as world number 121st, the German continued surprising everyone after triumphing over Lara Arruababarrena-Vecino, Olga Savchuk and Elena Bogdan all in straight sets to secure a main draw spot.
Regardless of losing in the second round to third seeded Vera Zvonareva, she jumped twenty-one spots and made the 100th mark in the WTA rankings.
Coming to the Wimbledon warm up event, Lisicki shocked everyone at Birmingham WTA international event in June and clinched her second career title. On route to the title, she upset twelfth seeded Japanese Kimiko Date Krumm, fourteenth
seeded Slovak Magdalena Rybarikova, third seeded Chinese Shuai Peng and fourth seeded Slovak Daniela Hantuchova without losing a set. The win helped her jump thirty-eight places in the WTA rankings.
The 5’10” German high spiritedly entered Wimbledon, third of the four Grand Slam events held on the grass courts, and after dumping some top tennis stars, she dug her way into the last four. Lisicki upset Li Na and Bartoli in this
event as well but was ousted by Sharapova again. Her brilliant run of form not only led her advance into her first Grand Slam semi-finals but also lifted her thirty-six places up in the rankings.
Steffi Graf was the last German to reach a Grand Slam final in Wimbledon and after twelve years, Lisicki became the first German to reach a final four spot since Graf’s run of form.
"It's great for German tennis, we have great girls, not only me," Lisicki said. "I kind of missed Steffi play. I started watching her a bit later. I've heard all about her and seen some of her matches though. It's unbelievable
what she did."
Turned pro in 2006, Lisicki carried her winning ways on the build up tournaments for the US Open, last of the four Grand Slam event held on the hard courts. She upset fourth seeded Australian Samantha Stosur and fifth seeded Pole
Agnieszka Radwanska with help from her blistering serves. Her serve speed was 125 MPH in this tournament and which made her the fastest serve in 2011 till Venus Williams served with 126 MPH at US Open in the end of the next month. Lisicki made it to the semi-finals
before being crushed by Serna Williams with a breadstick.
The blissful German then made a last eight berth at Carlsbad before losing to Zvonareva and despite exiting from the opening round at Cincinnati WTA Premier event, she entered Dallas WTA event as fifth seed, ranked 22nd
in the WTA rankings. Lisicki raised the bar of her game again and with her exquisite display of tennis, she swallowed all her opponents with a breadstick or a bagel. In the finals, the German crushed eight seeded Romanian Irina Begu with a bagel in the semis
and destroyed French qualifier Aravane Rezai with a breadstick to shelf her second title of the season.
Lisicki’s carried her momentum into the US Open and trashed Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko in straight sets. She got lucky with a walkover win against a former world number one Venus Williams and hit away Irina Falconi with a bagel
in the third round. Despite being ousted in the fourth round to second seeded Russian Vera Zvonareva, the sparkling German jumped five spaces in the WTA ranking and reached the world number seventeen.
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