Serena Williams continued her dominance of Maria Sharapova with a thorough 6-2, 6-4 win in the Wimbledon semifinals Thursday. Williams now has 17 consecutive wins over Sharapova and 27 straight victories in Grand Slam matches, her last loss coming in Wimbledon’s third round last year. She’s also 38-1 this year.
[Sally Jenkins: It’s Serena and nobody else]
Williams’s pursuit of her second “Serena Slam” — titles in four straight Grand Slam events — and her first calendar Grand Slam also remained intact in front of a staid Centre Court crowd.
“They’ve seen this play before; they know how it ends,” ESPN’s Chris Fowler said while noting the crowd’s apparent lack of enthusiasm.
Williams will play 20th-seeded Garbine Muguruza, a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 winner over Agnieszka Radwanska, in Saturday’s final. Muguruza, a 21-year-old Spaniard who defeated Williams but lost to Sharapova at the 2014 French Open, will be playing in her first Grand Slam final
Williams improved to 18-2 all-time against Sharapova, last losing to her in the final of the 2004 Tour Championships (Sharapova also defeated Williams in that year’s Wimbledon final for the first of her five Grand Slam titles). Thursday’s match was just their third ever at Wimbledon and their first since 2010.
By comparison, Sharapova is 120-39 all-time against the rest of the top 25 in her career.
Williams barely needed to touch the ball as she broke a shaky Sharapova in the match’s first game. Sharapova, whose service toss was an issue throughout the match, hit only 2 of 8 first serves and double-faulted three times. Williams, meanwhile, had two aces in her first service game and then broke Sharapova again in the match’s fifth game on her way to a quick first-set victory.
Sharapova looked more composed in the second set until the fifth game, when Williams used a couple of overpowering returns and another double fault by Sharapova to break. Five games later, she was on to her 25th Grand Slam final.
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