In the first round of the Australian Open in 2006, Venus Williams lost to Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria by a score of 2-6, 6-0, 9-7. Strange score, strange result.
Venus said he couldn’t remember much about it, but she will remember this one — Pironkova ousted the five-time Wimbledon champion Tuesday in the shock result of the championships, 6-2, 6-3 in the quarterfinals.
Unhappily for the elder Williams sister, this upset follows a pattern this year — streaks of solid and even brilliant play interrupted by an inexplicable defeat. Even by her lofty standards, Venus has enjoyed a pretty good year. WTA titles in Dubai and Acapulco and a runner-up spot in Miami gave her the year’s longest winning streak of 15 matches. She played superbly to reach the final in Madrid and then got overturned by Aravane Rezai. In Rome she lost 6-0, 6-1 to Jelena Jankovic, winning the fewest games of any match of her career.
And here, on these grass courts that have brought her so much success, she was steaming through the draw, winning her first four matches in straight sets until she walked out on No. 1 Court today and couldn’t hit a ball. Not in, anyway.
She was at a loss to explain the magnitude of her disaster against a speedy little opponent who chased down everything and came up with original strokes — like heavily spun, under-cut forehands.
“I just didn’t get enough balls in,” she said helplessly. “I mean, I had a lot of opportunities and a lot of short balls. I just seemed to hit each one out. She played solid but I definitely made too many contributions to her today.”
Her only rational explanation was that she had been too hard on herself when she missed a shot: “I think it’s important to stay in the moment,” she said. “I think sometimes when you miss some shots, you get caught up in the ones you miss, not the ones you need to make. Obviously I expect a lot from myself.”
Venus was searching for answers but on one point she was adamant. When asked how long she wanted to pursue her tennis career when she had other things in her life, she replied, “Well, why shouldn’t I want to pursue this? I’m pretty good at it most days. Today, I didn’t seem to be the best tennis player but, for the most part, I rock and roll this game. I’ll give up when I’m just terrible. It would take more than just a few days in a year to make me quit tennis.”
Speaking from the position of No. 2 in the world, one could see her point.
The fact that Venus played badly did not detract from Pironkova’s achievement. This is one perky, pretty and lively performer whose fluent English came gushing out afterwards.
“Everyone back home is very excited,” she said. “Honestly, I think no one expected me to play semifinal in Wimbledon and beat Venus Williams like that. I didn’t have a particular strategy against her. I just tried to play my game which is, like, move her as much as possible. Yeah, I think I also did very good defense.”
Pironkova, who began playing at the age of four because her father, a former canoeing champion, is a tennis coach, had only won one match at Wimbledon in five previous visits.
“Wimbledon has always been like a religion to me,” she said. “Growing up every player is looking at Wimbledon. It’s like a dream.”
The question now is whether she can keep the dream alive. In the other upset of the day, the experienced No. 21-seeded Russian Vera Zvonareva reached her first Wimbledon semifinal by outplaying U.S. Open champion Kim Clijsters 3-6, 6-4, 6-2. After a solid, powerful start, producing the kind of tennis that had seen off Justine Henin in the previous round, Clijsters faded in the face of the relentless efficiency of her opponent’s ground strokes.
Interestingly, Zvonareva has played Pironkova once before — in Moscow last year, and she lost badly. Unlike Venus, Vera will not forget.
“I will try to remember that match. I think she’s an all-over-the-court player. It’s hard to predict what she’s going to do. Sometimes she can slice; sometimes she can hit the ball; sometimes she can play slow. So you lose your rhythm.”
Not much was simple in the top half of the draw, either, apart from Serena Williams’ 7-6, 6-3 victory over China’s Na Li. The fourth quarterfinal produced an extraordinary contest between the left-handed Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic, ranked No. 62 in the world and Kaia Kanepi of Estonia, ranked 80. The Estonian should have won. Kanepi had three match points in the second set tiebreak, led 4-0 in the third set, had two match points when serving for it and eventually went down to her 20-year-old opponent 4-6, 7-6, 8-6.
It was a terrific effort from Kvitova who was so close to losing that, on the last match point she saved, her second serve hit the top of the tape and fell in court. Kanepi, unraveling by that stage, then hit a forehand into the net.
So Kvitova, who thrashed the No. 3 seed Caroline Wozniacki in the previous round 6-2, 6-0, now goes into a semifinal against Serena, having never won a match in her two previous appearances at Wimbledon.
This will be considered a surprise to everyone except Serena: “I saw her playing in the early round and thought ‘Wow, she’s doing really well.’ She’s left-handed and she was hitting the ball so clean.”
Another upset in the making? Don’t bet on it — even though Serena says she is still not playing at her best.
