Maria Sharapova, the No. 1 seed, could not make it to the round of eight.
WIMBLEDON, England — The shot that doomed Maria Sharapovaon what was a manic middle Monday whizzed past at 108 miles per hour, a first-rate second serve that crowned her third Round of 16 exit at Wimbledon in six years. This loss, though — this was different.
Never before had she roared into the All England Club ranked No. 1 in the world, as the top seed, as the French Open champion — a triumph that completed her career Grand Slam. Eluding her still is a second Wimbledon title.
Sharapova, a finalist in 2011, was trounced Monday by Sabine Lisicki of Germany, whose deep, flat ground strokes sent her scurrying from side to side and, ultimately, out of the tournament.
It was a measure of vengeance for Lisicki, who had lost her three previous matches against Sharapova, including one in straight sets — by the same score, 6-4, 6-3, in fact — in a Wimbledon semifinal last year. When second-seeded Victoria Azarenka throttled Ana Ivanovic a few hours later, Sharapova’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day grew even worse. Gone was her No. 1 ranking, which she will have held for a month and wanted desperately to retain.
“Obviously, what I achieved a few weeks ago doesn’t just go away in a few minutes; I’ll have that for the rest of my career,” Sharapova said. “But the tennis world always keeps going. You have to raise your level at that point, even when your opponent plays really great tennis.”
This is what constituted really great tennis on Court 1: Lisicki breaking Sharapova three times in the first set — and four times over all — while winning 71 percent of the points on her own first serve, compared with a 56 percent success rate for Sharapova. After blistering that ace on match point, Lisicki, the woman nicknamed Boom Boom, fell to her knees, the grass absorbing her joy.
The enthusiasm that infused her play Monday lingered for more than an hour, as she smiled and giggled behind a microphone in the main interview room. Asked if she viewed her victory as revenge, Lisicki laughed and said, “Yeah, for all three of them, actually.”
Sharapova, who had beaten her in the fourth round at the Australian Open in January, was loath to compare Lisicki’s performances — “This is grass, it’s completely different,” she said — but Lisicki, seeded 15th, perceived her as due for a loss. After all, Lisicki is to French Open winners what milk is to spicy foods: the consummate neutralizer. In her last three appearances at Wimbledon, Lisicki has toppled the newly minted champion: Svetlana Kuznetsova in 2009, Li Na in 2011 and now Sharapova.
“I guess they shouldn’t be in part of my draw,” Lisicki said.
Opportunity abounds in that half, which could generate a different women’s champion for the seventh consecutive Grand Slam. Already it is guaranteed to produce a first-time Wimbledon finalist from Lisicki, Angelique Kerber, Agnieszka Radwanska and Maria Kirilenko. The bottom half of the draw, underscored by Serena Williams, Petra Kvitova and Azarenka, contains three of the top six players in the world.
Pity the tennis balls selected for the Kerber-Lisicki quarterfinal, which will feature two of the more punishing hitters on tour. Kerber, seeded eighth, advanced by bidding farewell to Kim Clijsters, whose final Wimbledon match lasted all of 49 minutes, a 6-1, 6-1 loss. Disappointed with her execution but gracious in defeat, Clijsters offered a scouting report on Kerber’s next match, calling her a better mover and more of an all-around player than Lisicki, whose 24 aces at this Wimbledon rank second only to the 48 by Williams.
Williams’s humbling serve saved her Saturday in a tense three-set encounter with Zheng Jie, and it did again Monday in a 6-1, 2-6, 7-5 victory against Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan. Williams’s baseline play remains suspect and inconsistent, tempering her charge for a fifth Wimbledon title.
“I feel like I can do a lot better, which is very comforting,” Williams said. “Because if this is my best, I’m in trouble.”
The word Williams used to describe her play was “sluggish.” Her father and coach, Richard Williams, did not disagree, wondering aloud to a few reporters why his daughter looked flat-footed, ceded the role of aggressor and hit too often to Shvedova’s backhand, her superior stroke.
“If she’s not very careful, you can’t keep having matches like this and come through,” Richard Williams said.
He characterized her last two victories as lucky. Not surprisingly, Serena Williams disagreed. She played an outstanding first set against Shvedova, who, after capturing all 24 points in the first set Saturday against Sara Errani, won only four in losing the first four games.
But there was no disputing how fortune smiled on Williams at 30-30 in the final game after she broke Shvedova to go ahead by 6-5, when a backhand lob gave her match point. It was an elegant display of shotmaking. It was also a blatant mis-hit.
“I thought I was going for a backhand down the line, and somehow it ended up being a cross-court lob,” said Williams, whose match Tuesday against Kvitova will highlight the quarterfinal slate. “That was not in the plans whatsoever.”
Just as startling, perhaps, is the quarterfinal presence of Tamira Paszek, the only unseeded woman left. Really, though, is it that unexpected?
Unseeded but not unbowed, Paszek, a 21-year-old counterpuncher from Austria, reached the quarterfinals last year. On Monday, she continued to disregard a horrid start to her season (2-13) by winning her ninth straight match on grass, by 6-2, 6-2 against 21st-seeded Roberta Vinci. Up next for Paszek, who has blasted the most winners from each side (57 forehand, 55 backhand) among the remaining women, will be Azarenka, who pummeled Ivanovic, the 2008 French Open winner, 6-1, 6-1.
That victory in Paris must seem long ago to Ivanovic, who has yet to return to a Grand Slam quarterfinal. It has only been a month, but neither has Sharapova.
Never before had she roared into the All England Club ranked No. 1 in the world, as the top seed, as the French Open champion — a triumph that completed her career Grand Slam. Eluding her still is a second Wimbledon title.
Sharapova, a finalist in 2011, was trounced Monday by Sabine Lisicki of Germany, whose deep, flat ground strokes sent her scurrying from side to side and, ultimately, out of the tournament.
It was a measure of vengeance for Lisicki, who had lost her three previous matches against Sharapova, including one in straight sets — by the same score, 6-4, 6-3, in fact — in a Wimbledon semifinal last year. When second-seeded Victoria Azarenka throttled Ana Ivanovic a few hours later, Sharapova’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day grew even worse. Gone was her No. 1 ranking, which she will have held for a month and wanted desperately to retain.
“Obviously, what I achieved a few weeks ago doesn’t just go away in a few minutes; I’ll have that for the rest of my career,” Sharapova said. “But the tennis world always keeps going. You have to raise your level at that point, even when your opponent plays really great tennis.”
This is what constituted really great tennis on Court 1: Lisicki breaking Sharapova three times in the first set — and four times over all — while winning 71 percent of the points on her own first serve, compared with a 56 percent success rate for Sharapova. After blistering that ace on match point, Lisicki, the woman nicknamed Boom Boom, fell to her knees, the grass absorbing her joy.
The enthusiasm that infused her play Monday lingered for more than an hour, as she smiled and giggled behind a microphone in the main interview room. Asked if she viewed her victory as revenge, Lisicki laughed and said, “Yeah, for all three of them, actually.”
Sharapova, who had beaten her in the fourth round at the Australian Open in January, was loath to compare Lisicki’s performances — “This is grass, it’s completely different,” she said — but Lisicki, seeded 15th, perceived her as due for a loss. After all, Lisicki is to French Open winners what milk is to spicy foods: the consummate neutralizer. In her last three appearances at Wimbledon, Lisicki has toppled the newly minted champion: Svetlana Kuznetsova in 2009, Li Na in 2011 and now Sharapova.
“I guess they shouldn’t be in part of my draw,” Lisicki said.
Opportunity abounds in that half, which could generate a different women’s champion for the seventh consecutive Grand Slam. Already it is guaranteed to produce a first-time Wimbledon finalist from Lisicki, Angelique Kerber, Agnieszka Radwanska and Maria Kirilenko. The bottom half of the draw, underscored by Serena Williams, Petra Kvitova and Azarenka, contains three of the top six players in the world.
Pity the tennis balls selected for the Kerber-Lisicki quarterfinal, which will feature two of the more punishing hitters on tour. Kerber, seeded eighth, advanced by bidding farewell to Kim Clijsters, whose final Wimbledon match lasted all of 49 minutes, a 6-1, 6-1 loss. Disappointed with her execution but gracious in defeat, Clijsters offered a scouting report on Kerber’s next match, calling her a better mover and more of an all-around player than Lisicki, whose 24 aces at this Wimbledon rank second only to the 48 by Williams.
Williams’s humbling serve saved her Saturday in a tense three-set encounter with Zheng Jie, and it did again Monday in a 6-1, 2-6, 7-5 victory against Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan. Williams’s baseline play remains suspect and inconsistent, tempering her charge for a fifth Wimbledon title.
“I feel like I can do a lot better, which is very comforting,” Williams said. “Because if this is my best, I’m in trouble.”
The word Williams used to describe her play was “sluggish.” Her father and coach, Richard Williams, did not disagree, wondering aloud to a few reporters why his daughter looked flat-footed, ceded the role of aggressor and hit too often to Shvedova’s backhand, her superior stroke.
“If she’s not very careful, you can’t keep having matches like this and come through,” Richard Williams said.
He characterized her last two victories as lucky. Not surprisingly, Serena Williams disagreed. She played an outstanding first set against Shvedova, who, after capturing all 24 points in the first set Saturday against Sara Errani, won only four in losing the first four games.
But there was no disputing how fortune smiled on Williams at 30-30 in the final game after she broke Shvedova to go ahead by 6-5, when a backhand lob gave her match point. It was an elegant display of shotmaking. It was also a blatant mis-hit.
“I thought I was going for a backhand down the line, and somehow it ended up being a cross-court lob,” said Williams, whose match Tuesday against Kvitova will highlight the quarterfinal slate. “That was not in the plans whatsoever.”
Just as startling, perhaps, is the quarterfinal presence of Tamira Paszek, the only unseeded woman left. Really, though, is it that unexpected?
Unseeded but not unbowed, Paszek, a 21-year-old counterpuncher from Austria, reached the quarterfinals last year. On Monday, she continued to disregard a horrid start to her season (2-13) by winning her ninth straight match on grass, by 6-2, 6-2 against 21st-seeded Roberta Vinci. Up next for Paszek, who has blasted the most winners from each side (57 forehand, 55 backhand) among the remaining women, will be Azarenka, who pummeled Ivanovic, the 2008 French Open winner, 6-1, 6-1.
That victory in Paris must seem long ago to Ivanovic, who has yet to return to a Grand Slam quarterfinal. It has only been a month, but neither has Sharapova.
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