Venus Williams dumped out of Wimbledon by Tsvetana Pironkova
Tsvetana Pironkova knocked Venus Williams out of Wimbledon in the quarterfinals, with the world No. 82 winning the match 6-2, 6-3.
For Williams, it was the worst day at the office she’d had at the All England Club in quite some time, but for her opponent it continues what has already been her best performance in a Grand Slam by quite some margin, with the second round her best performance at any of the majors before she arrived in SW19 this year.
She’s now just one win away from reaching the final of the most prestigious Grand Slam of them all.
It was Williams who had the first opportunity to gain the ascendancy in the match, but Pironkova saved a double break point chance in the fifth game of the quarter-final and went on to hold serve. It was then the Bulgarian who went on to claim the first break of the opening set, and surprise everyone watching the action on No. 1 Court by setting up triple break point against an untidy Williams as she served to stay in the set.
Venus saved all three chances, but the unseeded player created a fourth and made that one count as she stormed to a 1-0 advantage against the five-time Wimbledon champion, who despite hitting more winners than Pironkova in the set was brought undone by 13 unforced errors to her opponent’s two and a poor first service percentage in the opening set.
That’s to take nothing away from the world No. 82’s efforts, however, as she utilised a powerful serve and big hitting to dictate terms to an opponent who hasn’t missed out in the place in the Wimbledon final since 2006.
There was one big reason too for the 22-year-old to enter this match with the belief that she could win it on a surface that Venus has generated more Grand Slam success than any other, namely her first round victory over the world No. 2 at the Australian Open in 2006, where Pironkova prevailed 9-7 in the third.
That victory squared the ledger between the pair at one win apiece, and so it remained until today.
It’s one thing, however, to get the early jump on a champion player such as Venus, but another to turn it into an upset victory, and it was Williams who secured the first break of the second set; Pironkova, however, returned the favour as games were back on serve again at 2-2.
Consecutive double faults at 15-0 brought Pironkova into the game with Venus serving at 3-2, and after duking out a couple of deuces, the challenger landed a looping forehand in the American’s back-hand corner, and Venus duly sent the backhand wide to hand her opponent yet another break of serve.
Pironkova brought up two match points against the Williams serve, with the former champion digging deep to stay in the match and saving them both and forcing Pironkova to serve out the match.
That the Bulgarian did, sealing the biggest victory of her career so far when Venus sent a volley wide.
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