(Photo by Hamish Blair/Getty Images)
Wimbledon won’t be so pretty come Thursday morning.
Sure, tennis fans will be milling about the well-manicured grounds of the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, sipping on champagne and Pimm's, noshing on strawberries and cream, and generally doing what people do to convince themselves that, yes, they really are at Wimbledon, the most famous tennis tournament in the world.
Still, if the Williams sisters have anything to do with it—and if they play anything like they did in their quarterfinal matches today—when both women’s singles semifinal matches take place on Thursday, things will get ugly.
Their opponents will look like deer in headlights and the spectators, well, sometimes they won’t look at all. Either they won’t be able to watch the carnage the sisters are likely to unleash or they’ll be so transfixed they won’t be able to blink.
This isn’t to say their opponents, Russians Dinara Safina and Elena Dementieva, won’t try to make it hard for Venus and Serena to reach yet another all-Williams final.
Quite the contrary. Safina’s World No. 1, the Olympic silver medalist, and was a finalist in the last two Grand Slams. Dementieva’s World No. 4, the Olympic gold medalist, and was a semifinalist at Wimbledon last year too. Both are well-known for their work ethic, fitness, and (relative) consistency.
In fact, those who drone on about the lack of consistency at the top of women’s tennis should note the rankings of the four semifinalists—No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4.
That the semifinals aren’t expected to be gripping has less to do with the Russians and more to do with the sisters.
The Williams sisters bring it when it counts, and, in tennis, the Grand Slams are when it counts. Knowing that winning one more match means they’ll meet in the final and that a Williams will win it all must provide additional motivation for them. If all this isn’t frightening enough for the Russians, today the sisters played some of the best tennis they’ve played in a long time.
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