Wimbledon glance: Serena Williams excited for quarters

The Latvian hits the net again and Kerber takes a comfortable 3-0 lead. “To be here, to be in the semi-finals”, Williams said. “I think now, the moment I’m living, it just shows me that I was right, I actually took a good decision”. So it’s really cool. In terms of a tennis coach, I don’t know if I – clearly I don’t know if I have patience.

Williams told journalists to “stay tuned for the next episode, Serena Williams Centre Court” when asked whether her friend the Duchess of Sussex might be visiting Wimbledon this week.

She is now ranked 181 in the world but has been seeded 25th by the All England Club. She was the lone top-10 women’s seed still around at this upset-filled tournament, and now she’s also gone.

If there was any panic among fans of Serena Williams as she dropped the first set of her Wimbledon quarterfinal match against Camila Giorgi, that angst definitely didn’t carry onto the court and into the mind of the world’s greatest tennis player.

With no top-10 seeds making the quarterfinals for the first time in Wimbledon history, 11th-seeded Kerber is the highest-ranked player left in the hunt for the Venus Rosewater Dish.

The 11th seed has never faced Ostapenko, who says she is playing with freedom after the disappointment of her French Open title defence ending with a first-round exit in May.

“You’re only as good as your last win”. Kerber saves it the first time, but Ostapenko manages to break with a screaming backhand victor.

Jelena Ostapenko advanced to a second consecutive Wimbledon quarterfinal with a 7-6 (7-4), 6-0 victory over Aliaksandra Sasnovich.

The 12th-seeded Ostapenko was aggressive throughout, hitting 28 winners – 13 coming off her backhand.

It did not even matter that her fellow seeds would avoid her in the draw, given their exodus but it was the unseeded Giorgi that presented her biggest challenge to date.

The 12th seed will face Dominika Cibulkova next after the Slovakian continued her defiant run with a 6-4 6-1 victory over Su-Wei Hseih. She played a powerful game throughout – averaging a 112 miles per hour first serve on the day and had six total aces and 20 winners. You can’t plan for them anyway because one point can change the outcome of a set.

Cibulkova took the set and the incident seemed to effect Hsieh, who was beaten 6-4 6-1.

There was no let-up from Bertens, who fizzed another victor past a stranded Pliskova to lead 2-0 in the second, but the 2016 US Open runner-up was back on serve at 4-3 courtesy of an excellent return.

Even by Federer’s stratospheric standards, the first set was a little absurd.

Shrieking and clenching her fists after every key point that went her way, Serena let out a gutteral “C’mon” once she wrapped up the set. Argentinean del Potro was up two sets to one when bad light stopped play on Monday evening.