Sport
Wimbledon 2012: Serena Williams advances to quarterfinals
”I feel fine,” she said. ”I’m not tired. I’m not anything. I feel good. I feel like, bottom line, I can play so much better than what I have been playing. … You know me. I’m never satisfied.”
The match ended in a slight drizzle, with play suspended on some of the other courts. Shvedova removed her glasses in the final two games to keep the lenses from getting wet.
”I think we both wanted to keep playing because it was so deep into the match,” Williams said. ”I didn’t want to stop.”
Williams finished with 35 winners, including 12 aces, and 13 errors. Shvedova had 24 winners and 20 errors.
Shvedova had won a ”golden set” in the previous round, taking the first set without losing a point against Sara Errani. On Monday, she found herself on the other end of a one-sided beating in the opening set, winning just one game and 12 points against Williams.
But Shvedova settled down and won five consecutive games to take the second set and go up 1-0 in the third. Williams received a warning for racket abuse after being broken to lose the set.
Down 0-40 in the ninth game of the final set, Shvedova saved three break points to hold for a 5-4 lead. But Williams broke Shvedova in her next service game to allow herself to serve out the match. A double-fault and a backhand error by Shvedova helped hand Williams the decisive break.
