The semifinals are set for Wimbledon 2015. Garbine Muguruza of Spain will take on Aga Radwanska of Poland in one semifinal and Maria Sharapova will take on her nemesis Serena Williams in the other semifinal. Players get a rest day tomorrow and the semifinal matches will be played on Thursday, allowing one more rest day before the final is played on Saturday.
The Muguruza vs Radwanska semifinal will be the fifth meeting between these two players. The first two matches were won by Radwanska but the two matches played this year were both won by Muguruza. All of their previous matches were played on hard courts and the grass courts at Wimbledon definitely give Radwanska and her style of game the advantage.
Radwanska has been a fixture in the WTA top ten for several years and yet she has never won a Grand Slam title, only making it to the final match once previousl–at the 2012 Wimbledon Championships where she lost to Serena Williams in three sets. With that in mind she hired Martina Navratilova at the end of 2014, in what turned out to be a short-lived coaching stint. However, Navratilova has been seen in Wimbledon with suggestions that she is still involved with Radwanska in a mentoring capacity. Although the beginning of the year produced poor results, Radwanska has found top form again on the grass. Her game which makes use of a wide variety of slices and angles is best suited for the low bounce of the ball on the grass surface. Radwanska’s shot creativity has earned her “shot of the month” honours from the WTA several times and in 2014 she also won the “shot of the year” honour.
In contrast, Muguruza is one of the harder hitters on the tour, currently ranked at #19 on the WTA in comparison to Radwanska’s #13 ranking. Muguruza’s best major results have come on the clay at the French Open where she has reached the quarterfinals the last two years, most notably defeating Serena Williams there in 2014. As Radwanska stated in her post quarterfinal match press conference, Muguruza plays a similar style to Madison Keys so her quarterfinal match was good preparation for her next opponent.
The Williams vs Sharapova match might be another viewing of a show that seems to be on constant replay. The head to head between these to players is a 17-2 beat down in favour of Serena, their last meeting taking place at the Austalian Open final earlier this year. As has been the case in many of her matches this year Serena has surrendered the first set before getting serious about winning and then she steps up her game in the second and third sets and moves on.
Sharapova, on the other hand, has not faced a lot of challenges. Until her quarter final meeting with Coco Vandeweghe she had won all her matches in straight sets, but the highest seed she faced was Begu at #29.
That being said, Sharapova has played well up to this point in the tournament, but will she be able to raise her game to match that of Serena, who has already been forced to raise her level against both Heather Watson and Victoria Azarenka? Serena has shown that when in trouble she can serve even bigger, she can find even better angles on her ground strokes and her volleys become even more dangerous.
There is a lot riding on every match for Williams. There is the Grand Slam match winning streak at 26 matches going back to last year’s U.S.Open and there is the possibility of winning the actual Grand Slam of tennis–a feat not accomplished since Steffi Graff did it in 1988. A title at Wimbledon would give Williams 21 Grand Slam titles, placing her third on the all time list behind Margaret Court(24) and Steffi Graff(22).
Both semifinal matches promise lots of drama filled tennis on Centre Court and tennis fans everywhere will be spending Thursday on the edge of their seats.
Enjoy what you see? Check out our full Wimbledon coverage here.
Main Photo:
