Wimbledon 2013: Talking Points from Day 7

The dethroned queen

Serena Williams

In a tournament that will be forever remembered as one of the most shocking of all time, the exit of reigning champion, world number one and overwhelming favorite Serena Williams, is arguably the biggest shock of them all.

I say arguably because unlike names like Darcis, Stakhovsky and de Brito, Sabine Lisicki has a lot of pedigree on grass. She is one of a dying breed of tennis players left in the world, a grass court specialist. And this is why for the last four years that she has competed at Wimbledon, she is the most dangerous floater for the big names to face. The wildcard has beaten Svetlana Kuznetsova, Caroline Wozniacki, Li Na, Marion Bartoli and Maria Sharapova all on the grass courts of SW19 and has never failed to reach the quarter-finals here.

So why is the dethroning of Williams a bigger upset than that of Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal?

Well, it was because Williams was such an overwhelming favorite for the tournament that every point of discussion on the women’s side of the draw was ‘who is going to reach the final to get beaten by Serena’ after Sharapova and Azarenka had been knocked out early. The fact that we now have to think again on who is actually going to win the title is slightly peculiar. Whilst Federer’s loss was huge, he wasn’t the actual main favorite for the championship, it was more the end of an era.

The match itself was also surprising. After being blitzed in the first set, she returned the favour in the second and seemed to have restored normality to the match. But then she tightened up, missed easy balls and went into a ‘don’t lose’ mentality and Lisicki punished her timed play with a series of winners to take the match.

The whole tournament had been geared towards Serena winning her sixth title, but the pressure finally took a toll on Serena with no Sharapova and Azarenka in the draw. That is why it was so unbelievable to wave Williams goodbye.