By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
Sabine Lisicki registered one of the biggest upsets in Wimbledon history, knocking off world No. 1 and five time champion Serena Williams in the fourth round, ending her 34-match win streak.
What made Lisicki’s 6-2, 1-6, 6-4 upset even more astonishing is the fact that Williams lead by 3-0 in the third set, having won nine of last 10 games and seemingly in full control of the match.
Lisicki also dug herself out of a 0-40 deficit while serving at 3-4 in the third set. A loss of any of those three points would have given Williams, regarded as having the greatest serve in the history of women’s tennis, the opportunity to serve for the match.
Lisicki, a German ranked No. 24, won negotiated her way back to deuce and held serve for 4-4, then, with a blistering array of groundstrokes, broke the Williams serve for a third time in the third set to take a 5-4 lead. She then fought off one break point in the next game – with an ace out down the tee that curved away from Williams – before closing her the shocking upset on her second match point.
“I am still shaking. I am so happy,” said Lisicki to the BBC following the match as she burst into tears when she once again realized the monumental upset that she had just caused.
Chris Evert, the two-time Wimbledon champion now commentator on ESPN, said during the broadcast of the match that she noticed that Williams started to play more careful and tentative. “This is the first time that I feel Serena is in trouble in the whole the match” Evert said after Lisicki dug herself out of the 0-40 hole at 3-4 in the third set.
“I didn’t play the big points big enough,” said Williams in her post-match press conference. “I had a little bit of a hesitation. That explains it.”
Williams also used words like “begging off” and “backed off of a success” of her third-set freeze and not being aggressive enough to take the match, characteristics that Lisicki perfected in the final stages of the match. “I definitely had my opportunities, but I didn’t take them,” said Williams.
With the upset loss of world No. 3 Maria Sharapova in the second round and No. 2 seed Vika Azarenka’s withdrawal in the second round due to injury, all pundits, fans and journalists all but ceded the Wimbledon title to Williams, fresh off winning her 16th major singles title last month at the French Open.
The upset is the latest in a continued run of shocking upsets that have occurred this year at Wimbledon, coupled with Rafael Nadal’s first-round loss to No. 135-ranked Steve Darcis and Roger Federer’s second-round loss to No. 116-ranked Sergiy Stakhovsky.
