Venus Williams Loses In Wimbledon Thriller

Lawn Tennis, Ace Tennis Magazine, Lawn Tennis Magazine

Venus Williams Loses In Wimbledon Thriller
By Tripp Mateschitz, Lawn Tennis Analyst, Posted: Friday, July 4, 2014 1:20pm PST USA

LONDON-- On the first Friday at Wimbledon in the third round, the 30th seeded Venus Williams of the USA played exceptional tennis before committing several key errors in the tiebreaker as well as in the last game of the match to lose to the 6th seeded Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic 7-5, 6-7(2-7), 5-7 in a two and a half hour long classic.

In the first set, the 34 year old Williams held serve to reach 6-5 after hitting consecutive serves of speeds of 117, 114 and 107 miles per hour; the last serve an ace out wide.

And with Williams continuing to hit big the next game, the American scored the first break of serve of the match at 0-40 as a Kvitova inside out crosscourt backhand landed wide to send Williams ahead 7-5.

Playing at a very high level, Williams had committed only 3 unforced errors to Kvitova’s 14 unforced errors in set one.

In set two, Venus Williams held serve to lead 5-4 before reaching 15-30 on Kvitova’s serve. However a Kvitova ace out wide on the following point would level the game’s score at 30 all. A Williams netted forehand followed by a Williams netted backhand leveled to set at 5 all.

Both players would then hold serve to reach the tiebreaker.

Venus Williams of the USA

Playing at a very high level, Williams committed only 3 unforced errors to Kvitova’s 14 unforced errors in set one.

Kvitova struck a crosscourt backhand return winner followed by a crosscourt forehand volley winner to lead in the tiebreaker 2-0. Williams hit two forehands long then hit a backhand return winner down the line before netting two forehands to trail 2-6. A Williams double fault on set point leveled the match at one set all.

In the final set, both players held serve to reach 5-6 with Williams serving to stay in the match.

A 114 miles per hour Williams serve resulted in a netted Kvitova forehand return as the American went ahead 15-0. However Williams would hit a crosscourt backhand long then net a backhand down the line to trail 15-30. Another Williams crosscourt backhand hit long followed by a Williams crosscourt backhand netted would end the match.

Despite this year's week one loss, Williams has moved within one match win of Steffi Graf of Germany in the most Wimbledon singles matches won records.

Martina Navratilova of the USA leads all time with 120 singles Wimbledon matches won followed by Chris Evert of the USA with 96 Wimbledon matches won then Graf with 74 and Williams with 73.