Serena advances to ninth Wimbledon final

PHOTOGRAPHER: USA Today

Serena Williams defeated Elena Vesnina Thursday and is heading to her ninth Wimbledon final. She will face Angelique Kerber, who beat Venus Williams in the semifinals.

When Serena Williams took the court on Thursday with Elena Vesnina for their semifinal match at Wimbledon, it was impossible not to think about Roberta Vinci.

At the U.S. Open last year, with Williams two victories away from completing a Grand Slam, she ran into an obstacle named Vinci.

A 32-year-old Italian ranked 43rd, Vinci was a Grand Slam doubles champion who had never played in a singles semifinal at a major. She had not won a set in four previous matches with Williams.

Weighed down by the pressure and kept off balance by Vinci, Williams was the victim of one of the biggest upsets in the history of tennis, losing 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.

Vesnina, a 29-year-old Russian ranked 50th, is also a Grand Slam doubles champion who had never played in a major semifinal in singles. She had lost all four previous meetings, and all eight previous sets, to Williams.

But Williams erased any thoughts of Vinci by beating Vesnina 6-2, 6-0 on Thursday in 48 minutes.

She broke Vesnina in the first game and then won the next three before Vesnina even had a game point.

“I felt like I had no chance today, first of all,” Vesnina said. “I felt like Serena was playing really good. She was in a great mood, and serve was working really well for her.”

Williams had 11 aces among her 28 winners and lost only three points on her serve during the match.

“I just feel more relaxed and more at peace than I may have been in the past,” she said.

Asked to explain what being at peace meant, she added: “Sometimes when you are fighting, sometimes you want something so bad it can hinder you a little bit. Now I’m just a little bit more calm.”

Also squashed quickly Thursday were the hopes for the first all-Williams Grand Slam final since Wimbledon in 2009.

Fourth-seeded Angelique Kerber defeated No. 8 Venus Williams 6-4, 6-4 in 1 hour

12 minutes. Saturday’s final will be a rematch of this year’s Australian Open final, which Kerber won in three sets.

Venus Williams, 36, was playing in her first Grand Slam semifinal in six years. Perhaps weary from about 14 hours on court in singles and doubles in this tournament, she never quite found a rhythm on her serve and in her groundstrokes against Kerber.

There were five breaks of serve to open the match, and Williams did not hold her serve until the ninth game. By then, it was too late. Kerber closed out the set in the next game, capitalizing on four forehand errors by Williams.

Kerber, who has not lost a set in the tournament, then broke Williams to open the second set, when Williams made three consecutive forehand errors.

Williams won only 57 percent of her first-serve points, by far her lowest number of the tournament.

Kerber won only five more points than Williams in the match, but she dominated the long rallies, winning seven of the nine that went nine shots or more. The last was on match point, a 19-shot rally that Kerber ended with a spectacular crosscourt winner.

Serena Williams, the defending champion here, is in her third straight Grand Slam final, but remains stuck at 21 major titles, one behind Steffi Graf’s Open era record.

She said that “for anyone else in this whole planet,” reaching three Grand Slam finals in one year would be a wonderful accomplishment.

“For me, it’s not enough,” she added. “But I think that’s what makes me different. That’s what makes me Serena.”

She said she learned from the loss to Kerber in Melbourne.

“She came out swinging, ready to win,” said Williams, a six-time Wimbledon champion appearing in her ninth final. “She was fearless. That’s something I learned. When I go into a final, I, too, need to be fearless like she was. It was inspiring afterwards to realize there’s a lot of things that I need to improve on.”

Kerber said she would bring a lot of confidence into the match because of her Australian Open win, but “at the end it’s a completely new match.” She added: “We are playing on grass court. She lost the final against me, and I know she will go out and try everything to beat me right now.”

Kerber said she believed her left-handed serve would be a better weapon on grass than on hardcourts. But she also has gained wisdom from her first six months as a Grand Slam champion.

“I learned from my up and downs,” she said. “I know how to handle all the stuff which I’m doing off court. I know that I have to take the time for my practice and focusing on the gym things and on the tennis as well.”

But no one on tour today has more experience in these situations than Serena Williams, who has played 27 Grand Slam finals.

“I think I’ve been training my mind for years and years, and I’ve been preparing for these moments for decades,” Williams said. “I feel like it’s been experience and it’s been success, it’s been failure, it’s been everything that created the opportunity for me to be able to be ready in those situations.”

Serena Williams also beat Vesnina in the women’s doubles quarterfinals Thursday, partnering with Venus to defeat Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova 7-6 (1), 4-6, 6-2.

Even with their deep runs in singles, the Williams sisters have remained steadfast about playing doubles here as preparation for the Rio Olympics.

“Winning in Rio, I would love that so much more than probably winning the singles gold at this point,” Serena Williams said.

Serena and Venus Williams have three Olympic gold medals and 13 Grand Slam titles in women’s doubles.

“They definitely want to get title in singles and doubles,” Vesnina said before their doubles match. “You can feel it. They’re very focused both on singles and doubles. They didn’t play doubles much last two, three years. This year they signed. You can see they’re very serious about that.”