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Serena sets herself up for title No 22
LONDON: A champagne cork popped somewhere on Centre Court four games into Serena Williams’s Wimbledon semifinal and while it was a tad premature, her 6-2, 6-0 thrashing
LONDON: A champagne cork popped somewhere on Centre Court four games into Serena Williams’s Wimbledon semifinal and while it was a tad premature, her 6-2, 6-0 thrashing of Elena Vesnina suggested she could be celebrating something special come Saturday.
The top-seeded American will be taking nothing for granted, having seen her bid to match Steffi Graf ’s modern era record of Grand Slam titles stuck one short on 21 for a year, but it was a menacing show of strength, albeit against an overawed opponent.
She dropped only three points on serve in an embarrassingly one-sided 49 minutes -- crunching down one 123mph delivery that topped the women’s speed charts at this year’s tournament.
From the moment the 34-year-old nonchalantly broke serve in the opening game the writing was on the wall for a leaden-footed Vesnina appearing in her first Grand Slam semifinal.
Serena Williams was forced to go on the attack once again on Thursday to defend equal prize money after she reached a ninth Wimbledon final in a new record time.
SERENA DEFENDS EQUAL PRIZE MONEY
The world No 1 blasted Russia’s Elena Vesnina off Centre Court in just 48mins 34sec, the fastest ever semifinal at the All England Club.
Vesnina earned £ 500,000 ($649,000) by making the last four.
In contrast, Marin Cilic and Jo- Wilfried Tsonga, beaten in the men’s quarterfinals on Wednesday, received £250,000 ($324,000) despite spending seven and half hours on court and playing five sets apiece.
“Yeah, I think we deserve equal prize money. Yeah, absolutely,” said Williams before staring out the male journalist who asked the question with steely contempt.
“Well, I would like to see people, the public, the press, other athletes in general, just realise and respect women for who they are and what we are and what we do,” she added.
