Sabine Lisicki upsets Marion Bartoli; moves into first Grand Slam semi-final – Wimbledon 2011
In-form wildcard entrant German Sabine Lisicki made it into her first Grand Slam semi-final as she moved on ahead at the 2011 Wimbledon Championships on Tuesday, 28th June after surviving a mid match lapse against the
ninth seeded Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli in their quarterfinal match.
Bartoli’s hopes of progressing at the event were dashed in the pair’s fourth meeting as Lisicki took a little over two hours to secure a 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-1 win.
Starting strong in the opener, Lisicki secured an early break in the first set. Breaking the Frenchwoman in the very first game, Lisicki rode on the break to clinch a 6-4 win in the opener.
Taking forty three minutes, Lisicki hit a slightly higher 67 percent on her first serve as opposed to Bartoli’s meagre 59 percent, recording an acceptable 70 percent win on it. She smashed four aces down the court to Bartoli’s
zero and hit eighteen well placed winners against the Frenchwoman’s disappointing five count. Lisicki won a total of 36 points of 64 to go one up in the set score.
Trailing in the set score, Bartoli was down but not out. Having found somewhat footing in the second set she met Lisicki blow for blow, with clear intentions of overpowering the German. Standing at 2-1 in the set, Bartoli capitalised
on Lisicki’s errant strokes to clinch a lucky break, going 3-1 in the lead. However, the resilient German broke back in the very next game and then held her service to level the score at three games each. The pair held their serve comfortably for the next
two games, before the in-form German came out firing in the ninth game. Hitting powerful winners and forcing errors from Bartoli, Lisicki converted another breakpoint opportunity to her advantage, going 5-4 in the lead. Determined to not give up, Bartoli snatched
back the break as she saved three match points to level the score at five games each. Another couple of successful hold pushed the set into a tiebreaker.
Forcing errors from Lisicki, Bartoli capitalised on a mini-break secure an early 3-1 lead, extending it to 5-2 moments later. Although Lisicki managed to win two more points reducing the deficit, it was Bartoli who clinched the
tiebreaker 7-4, levelling the set score.
With one set a piece, the match entered the decider. Despite losing the tiebreaker, Lisicki started strong in the final set as she won two breakpoints off Bartoli’s double faults in the second game to secure an early 2-0 lead,
extending it to 3-0 on her service. After a ten minute long game, Bartoli was able to put herself on the scoreboard as she reduced the deficit to 1-3. However, another break later, Lisicki had increased her lead to 5-1, ready to serve out the set. The German
successfully held her serve in the seventh game as she sealed her breadstick win and a spot in the semi-finals.
Lisicki moves on ahead to play either Russian diva Maria Sharapova or twenty fourth seeded Slovak Dominika Cibulkova. The latter two are expected to play their quarterfinal match next on Centre Court.
Tags: