10 days of the Wimbledon - Semi-final preview

We have reached the semifinals at The Championships at Wimbledon and what a spectacular 10 days these have been. We saw the last Wimbledon for Lleyton Hewitt and Jarkko Nieminen and the return of Tommy Haas to Grand Slam tournaments. The low seeding of Rafael Nadal (10) meant a very early meeting with another top 10 player. If everything went according to the seeding, he would have met David Ferrer in Round 4 and Andy Murray in the QFs. But David Ferrer withdrew from the tournament, thus giving lucky loser Luca Vanni a chance to compete at the championships. And Rafa's poor form continues as he lost to Dustin Brown once again (also lost to him in Halle R2 in 2014). There was another setback as Kei Nishikori withdrew from his second round match against Santiago Giraldo. On the other hand, the ladies' draw had many surprises as 8 out of the top 10 seeds had lost before the QFs.

We are now left with four ladies: Serena Williams(1), Maria Sharapova (4), Agnieszka Radwanska (13) and Garbine Muguruza (20) and four gentlemen: Novak Djokovic (1), Roger Federer (2), Andy Murray (3) and Richard Gasquet (21).

The Championships - Ladies' Singles

The top seeds started stumbling from the first round itself with Simona Halep (3), Carla Suarez Navarro (9), Eugenie Bouchard (12) making early exits. Ana Ivanovic (7) and Ekaterina Makarova (8) also lost in the second round. While seeds were falling, the defending champion Petra Kvitova was playing impressive tennis showing no mercy for her opponents. Then she met former world number one Jelena Jankovic in the third round and lost in a very closely contested match (Kvitova actually won more points than Jankovic in the match (85-84)). She made way too many unforced errors and paid the price for that. Coco Vandeweghe and Garbine Muguruza (20) made huge strides in the fourth round by beating sixth seed Lucie Safarova and fifth seed Caroline Wozniacki respectively in straight sets. Muguruza's fine form continued in the quarterfinals as she dismissed Timea Bacsinszky in straight sets to become the first Spanish woman since Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario (1997) to reach a grand slam semifinal. Meanwhile Radwanska reached her third Wimbledon semifinal. In the other half of the draw, normal proceedings continued as Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova reached the semifinals n contrasting styles. Serena came very close to elimination against Heather Watson in third round but fought her way back into the match by breaking Watson when she was serving for the match. She had two more difficult matches - fourth round clash with Venus Williams, which she won in straight sets, and QF clash with Victoria Azarenka. On the other hand, Sharapova dismissed her opponents with relative ease with just one of her matches going to 3 sets.

Semifinals:
1. Serena Williams vs Maria Sharapova
Serena has a commanding 17-2 head-to-head lead over Maria and the last time Maria beat Serena was way back in 2004. Also, the stats of this Wimbledon are not so promising for Maria. She has made 38 double faults and won only 40.7% of her second serve points compared to Serena's 11 double faults and 54.3% second serve points won. Serena has performed better than Maria in all departments. So, it is highly probable that Serena will be in the final waiting for either Muguruza or Radwanska.
2. Garbine Muguruza vs Agnieszka Radwanska
Garbine Muguruza is definitely the find of the tournament. Although they are tied at 2-2 head-to-head, Muguruza has a mental edge over Radwanska as she has beaten her twice in 2015. Moreover, Mugurua has played some exceptional tennis in the last three rounds ousting Angelique Kerber and Caroline Wozniakci on the way. Although Radwanska is better experienced and Muguruza may get some nerves while playing her first ever Grand Slam semifinal, still we believe Muguruza will emerge the winner if she continues to play the aggressive game she has played over the last one week.

The Championships - Gentlemen's Singles

The Gentlemen's draw was much less turbulent than the ladies'. Although there were withdrawals of David Ferrer (8) and Kei Nishikori (5), there were not many big surprises. Except that Rafael Nadal lost in the second round to German qualifier Dustin Brown. This is the fourth year in a row when Nadal has lost to a player outside top 100 at Wimbledon. Apart from Rafa, Grigor Dimitrov also suffered a third round exit at the hands of Richard Gasquet. Nick Kyrgios completed his revenge of last year's QF loss against Milos Raonic by winning their third round match in 4 sets. Nick put pressure on Raonic's serve and made his first serve win percentage drop from 81.4% to 75.8%. But Nick suffered a revenge loss to Richard Gasquet in the very next round. Nick had saved 9 match points last year to beat Gasquet. But it was a completely different story this time. In one game, it seemed that Nick was not trying hard enough as he simply walked away from a Gasquet serve without even trying to touch the ball. Several such incidents over the tournament raised many questions about Nick's attitude. Another young gun, Vasek Pospisil, had a great run at The Championships, ousting Fabio Fognini and in-form Victor Triocki before eventually losing to Andy Murray in the QFs.

Semifinals:
1. Novak Djokovic vs Richard Gasquet
Richard Gasquet had to dig deep to prevent a blockbuster SF between Novak and Stan. Novak would be relieved as he won't have to face Stan again and he has a commanding 12-1 head-to-head lead over Gasquet. Although Gasquet is in a very good form, Djokovic is in a much better form than him and it is very likely that Novak Djokovic will play the Wimbledon final once again.
2. Andy Murray vs Roger Federer
Both Andy and Roger have had a rather comfortable progress to the semifinals. Roger's serve has been really consistent throughout the tournament as he has faced just 3 break points in 5 matches and has been broken just once. Moreover, Federer has had a better first serve, better second serve, better return points won percentage, etc. So does this mean it is going to be a one way traffic in the semifinal? Andy Murray is a great fighter who never gives up. He also has the home crowd support. We should expect a very good semifinal from these two players. Roger will win this one in four sets if his service continues to put pressure on Murray and he keeps his unforced errors in check just like the first five matches.