Serena Williams and Angelique Kerber defeated their respective semi-final opponents to set up a mouth-watering title-clash at the Wimbledon Championships.
While Serena made light work of Russia’s Elena Vesnina, winning 6-2 6-2, Kerber shorn of an all-sister affair by putting a halt to Venus Williams’ resurgence with a 6-4 6-4 triumph.
The top-seeded Serena got off to a flying start as she raced to a 3-0 lead. Her powerful serve and fierce ground strokes were too hot to handle for Vesnina as the American converted yet another service break to take the opening set. Serena appeared even more lethal in the second, breaking Vesnina on all three occasions while consolidating hers throughout to complete a 6-2 6-0 conquest.
Serena fired 11 aces, won a dominating 96 percent of points on her first serve besides scoring 26 winners en route her 48-minute annihilation of the 50th-ranked Vesnina.
“I’m very happy. I was very focused today. It’s never easy out there. Every point you have to fight for so it’s never easy,” said the 34-year-old Serena, who improved to 30-5 this season.
The other semi-final battle – between the fourth-seeded Kerber and eighth-seeded Venus – turned out to a better contest with the former walking away with a straight-set victory.
Kerber kicked-off the game with a 5-2 lead before shrugging off a brief comeback from Venus to take the opener, 6-4. She, then, produced a near-perfect serve in the second set – losing just one point on her first serve – bar three doubles faults. The German star went up 2-0 in no time and didn’t offer any break point opportunity to cruise through to her first Wimbledon final.
Heading into the Saturday’s blockbuster final, Serena leads Kerber 5-2 in their head-to-head meetings.
