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Serena exacts revenge to reach semis
Revenge-hungry Serena Williams has demolished fellow American Jennifer Capriati 6-1 6-1 in 45 brutal minutes to reach the Wimbledon semi-finals.
The twice Wimbledon champion was in stupendous form on Wednesday as she avenged her quarter-final defeat by Capriati at the French Open earlier this month. Serena has lost only four times since making her comeback in March following knee surgery and former world number one Capriati had inflicted two of those defeats on her. She had declared her last effort against Capriati at Roland Garros as 'amateurish', but there was nothing sloppy about the top seed's performance on Wednesday.
It was the most one-sided of the pair's 16 career confrontations -- one of the great rivalries of recent years in women's tennis -- and only the fifth time the winner has secured victory in two sets. "I was very surprised ... I came out here and I was really, really focused and knew what I wanted to do," said Serena, who is bidding to become the first woman since Steffi Graf in 1993 to win three consecutive Wimbledon singles titles. "I know when I have to play Jen, she can be really tough so I can't let up at all. "I definitely have a lot of things to work on but I'm glad just to be through to the semi-finals after coming back from the injury." Capriati shadow Although both Americans entered the contest without dropping a set in this year's campaign, seventh seed Capriati was simply a shadow of the player who overwhelmed Serena four weeks ago. After Capriati had won her opening service game to take a 1-0 lead, she failed to hold serve even once as Serena ruthlessly pounded away from the baseline to take eight games in a row. A couple of errors and a double fault finally handed Capriati her first break point of the match in the third game of the second. Surprisingly given her nerveless performance, Serena double faulted again to gift her opponent the break. However, that was the last time Capriati registered on the Centre Court scoreboard as Serena hurtled towards a quick-fire victory. A diving volley from Serena, which Capriati failed to get over the net, sealed the win and a semi-final meeting with fourth-seeded Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo. "She just didn't do anything wrong," Capriati summed up. "You try to fight but you don't know what to do... whatever you try is just not good enough. "It's really hard, you know? But I can't allow myself to get discouraged. Sometimes other players are just too good and they will crush you but what is great about this game is there is always the next tournament." |
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