Maria Sharapova outdoes Sabine Lisicki to reach the final – Wimbledon Championships 2011
For the second time in her career Maria Sharapova is one match away from becoming the champion at the Wimbledon, ousting Sabine Lisicki of Germany in straight sets in their semi-final match on Thursday.
This was not a free ride into the finals, but Lisicki never laid hands on dealing with the sustained preeminence of Sharapova’s tennis, and so never got into this match. For long periods, it never gave the impression as though
Lisicki believed she could win a set, and Sharapova went through 6-4, 6-3.
Lisicki had out-served ninth-seeded Marion Bartoli in the quarter-final and the semi-final looked promising to be based upon the German's right-handed serve up against the terrifying Sharapova return.
However, It was Lisicki who went through the early pressure and, despite saving the first break point of the day with a 85 mph second serve, she sailed a forehand wide a couple of moments later to hand Sharapova a 4-2 lead.
Sharapova was figuring out the German's serve intelligently, creating favourable circumstance to return fire offensively and converting 100 percent break points before closing out the opener with six games to four.
While gumming up to make any headway on Sharapova's usually threatening first serve, Lisicki was well below her best as he made around 43 percent of second serves and won just 42 percent of the points on return going into the second
set.
When Sharapova earned a break point at 1-1 in the decider, Lisicki quickly found the range of her meaty ground strokes and punched away a high volley to stay on terms, but the pressure told two games later when she netted a forehand,
letting Sharapova to go 2-1.
It was all going to plan for Sharapova until a disturbing moment arrived at 2-2, when the Russian No.1 appeared to have lapse in concentration, allowing the German to go 3-2.
There was a flash of hope for the German with a rare trip to deuce on the Sharapova serve at 3-3 but the Russian quickly broke back, getting the decisive break with a forehand winner down the line, followed by another to clinch
the victory in just 87 minutes of play.
Emerging victorious, Sharapova will walk on to the centre court of Wimbledon on Saturday bidding to take another step of the journey towards hitting the bull's-eye, taking on the eighth-seeded Petra Kvitova of Czech Republic in
the finals.
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