Sabine Lisicki: Will Her Maturity Help Her Cause Another Upset?

A first-timer into the second week of a Grand Slam, she has been quite a revelation at Wimbledon and with her latest upset of the reigning Roland Garros queen, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Sabine Katharina Lisicki has proved that she is finally coming of age.

The latest prodigious talent to come out of the champion-churning Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy had been impressing tennis analysts, including former Wimbledon champion, Virginia Wade with her huge victories over Lindsay Davenport, Dinara Safina, Anna Chakvetadze.

But she also had been failing to put a successful finishing touch to her otherwise fascinating three-set duels with many other players on numerous other occasions, often after enjoying a comfortable lead.

In the third round encounter with Kuznetsova, at Wimbledon too, it was a case of jangling nerves once again, as she let a 5-2 lead slip away.

But in the end she finally managed to put the strings together and carve out the victory that was long desired of her.

Coached by father, Dr. Richard Lisicki, a first-generation Polish immigrant of Germany, this 19-year-old rushed out of the blocks with her super-aggressive brand of tennis.

The teenager, who has recorded the second fastest serve this week, right next to Venus Williams, wasted no time in attacking Kuznetsova ruthlessly with her booming serves and pounding groundstrokes.

The sheer pace of the lightning returns, especially the down-the-line ones, kept the Russian totally off-balance.

She mingled them cleverly with deft drop-shots which completely flabbergasted Svetlana, who was rooted to the baseline—a strategy completely suited to grass-courts.

In complete contrast to her 2008 Wimbledon outing, where she had lost in the first round to Marion Bartoli, this win was her biggest in a Grand Slam stage and should give her oodles of confidence as she prepares to take on her friend of Polish origin, the ninth seeded Dane, Caroline Wozniacki in the fourth round.

The teenagers will be locking horns for the third time in their career and the second time this year.

The German goes into the match with the confidence of having beaten the Dane in their previous meeting at Charleston, which virtually marked the beginning of a matured Lisicki’s soaring rise in the WTA circuit.

The green-clay Tier One tournament which also saw her beating Venus Williams en route to winning the title, boosted her spirit a lot and gave her, her first ever WTA title.

And after a couple of failures on the unforgiving red clay, the current World No. 41 has been able to translate her title-winning confidence onto the lustrous green lawns of Wimbledon.

An enthralling battle awaits in this match as Wozniacki, a junior Wimbledon champion herself and a winner at Eastbourne this year is no stranger to grass herself.

But the affable German’s aggressive approach and her ability to finish points early might cause some damages to Wozniacki’s pushing style of play, where she doesn’t usually go for winners from early on.

And if she manages not to rattle her nerves much and maintain the stunning composure she has exuded throughout the first week, Sabine Lisicki might very well be enjoying her first appearance in a Grand Slam quarter-final on the hallowed turf of SW19.