Maria Sharapova beats Zarina Dyas to make quarter-finals at Wimbledon

It was a successful day for American women as CoCo Vandeweghe and Madison Keys joined Serena Williams in reaching the quarter-finals.

With the 7-6 (7-1), 7-6 (7-4) win over the French Open finalist, Vandeweghe – who is ranked 47th in the world – advances to the quarterfinals against No. 4-ranked Maria Sharapova at 6 a.m. today. “We’ve got a boatload in the top 100 right now”. “I found it one of the most hard matches I’ve played in my Wimbledon career”, Djokovic said.

Vandeweghe extended her first game against Sharapova to seven minutes, eking out four break points, and from there she had the controlling hand in often gruelling exchanges from the back of the court. “It didn’t faze me, nor did I think about it”. For this was an audience firmly in the her corner, won over by her pluck and alienated by Sharapova’s -almighty din.

‘This is the furthest I have ever gone in a grand slam and I’m playing really well at this time, but I’m not really considering it like, wow, a breakthrough, ‘ she said. She reached the semifinals at the All England Club the next two years, but only once more since then, when she lost to Petra Kvitova in the 2011 final.

Sharapova won her first major title at Wimbledon in 2004.

“When I felt like it wasn’t being reciprocated, that’s when I spoke with the umpire for her to deal with”, she said, adding that the official had disagreed and taken no action.

The Venezuelan-born Spaniard bumped into her adopted country’s superstar actor Antonio Banderas at Wimbledon. “To come back and win in five definitely gives me great satisfaction and confidence for the next challenge”, Djokovic said.

Vandeweghe dominated both tiebreakers to win 7-6 (1), 7-6 (4) after the players traded breaks once in each set. Vandeweghe, who had not advanced beyond the third round of a major prior to this quarter-final, was finding the lines with a fearless self-assurance and bathing in the crowd’s rapturous acclaim as she did so. I don’t think he has a killer instinct in his eyes, at least this past year. My older brother who just flew in on a flight out of nowhere – I don’t know how he appeared here [as] I know he doesn’t have the money for a ticket -, his name is Beau. She has been serving incredibly well so far at SW19, having held 90 per cent of her service games, and chalked up 37 aces, which compares favourably to Maria’s 11, according to statistics provided by IBM SlamTracker.

“It’s good to see other Americans doing well for the sport of tennis in the United States, but for me, it doesn’t affect me either way”, Vandeweghe said. It went to a third but I still got the job done.

“It could have been a match in two sets”. The American began to find some more range and forced Sharapova to play defensive, but there was little she could do on the serve, as the Russian jammed some serves down the tee.

It keeps Williams on course for a Grand Slam this year but the Australian and French Open champ said: “I don’t have anything to prove”. Stunning scenes on Centre Court, as we went to a decider.

It is also the first time a Spanish woman has made it through to the last four at Wimbledon since Arantxa Sanchez Vicario achieved the feat in 1997.