Month of July , 2009

Former French Open champion Ana Ivanovic has been told to rest after sustaining a slight tear in her left thigh during her fourth-round match at Wimbledon.

The 13th-seeded Serb left the court in tears following one game in the second set after dropping the first set 6-1 to defending champion Venus Williams.

"The 21-year-old has a micro-tear in her left thigh muscle and must rest for the next one to two weeks," a statement on her website said.

 Roger Federer and Andy Murray are locked on collision course for a dream Wimbledon final, but a giant Croatian and a wily Spaniard stand in their quarter-final paths on Wednesday.

Federer will be playing his 25th Grand Slam quarter-final while 6ft 10in (2.08m) Ivo Karlovic has never before got this far in the majors.

Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Centre Court 13:00 Start
1. Gentlemen's Singles - Quarterfinals
Ivo Karlovic (CRO)[22] v. Roger Federer (SUI)[2]
2. Gentlemen's Singles - Quarterfinals
Andy Murray (GBR)[3] v. Juan Carlos Ferrero (ESP)
Court 1 13:00 Start
1. Gentlemen's Singles - Quarterfinals
Tommy Haas (GER)[24] v. Novak Djokovic (SRB)[4]
2. Gentlemen's Singles - Quarterfinals
Lleyton Hewitt (AUS) v. Andy Roddick (USA)[6]

Tennis fans are in for a treat at The Championships on Wednesday as five Grand Slam champions, including four former World No. 1s, and four of the top six seeds feature in quarter-final action.

[2] Roger Federer (SUI) vs. [22] Ivo Karlovic (CRO), Centre Court

Roger Federer, the five-time former champion and second seed, takes an 8-1 record into the first quarter-final on Centre Court against No. 22 seed Ivo Karlovic of Croatia.

 Wimbledon quarter-finalist Ivo Karlovic and world number 13 Marin Cilic have been selected to represent Croatia in next week's Davis Cup tie against the United States.

Captain Goran Prpic named his side late on Tuesday, adding Roko Karanusic and Lovro Zovko to the line-up for the July 10-12 quarter-final being played on an indoor clay court in the northern Adriatic town of Porec.

Former world number seven Mario Ancic was forced to withdraw from the tie as he continues to recover from mononucleosis.

Despite 15 double faults and 38 unforced errors, Dinara Safina outlasted dynamic German teenager Sabine Lisicki to win a tougher-then-expected quarter-final 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-1. The world No.1 battled for two hours 25 minutes to book a semi-final tie against Venus Williams.

Another year, another semi-final – Elena Dementieva is beginning to make a habit of appearing in the last four at Wimbledon. Given that she used to regard grass courts with suspicion, this is not a bad effort.

The Russian eased into her appointed place – she is the fourth seed, after all – with a 66-minute rout of Francesca Schiavone 6-2, 6-2.

Serena Williams blasted her way into the semi-finals with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over the hugely promising Victoria Azarenka. The 19-year-old from Minsk subjected Williams to a crushing defeat in their last encounter earlier this year, but here she threatened only briefly in the second set before Serena got her revenge.

Venus Williams did not contradict Agnieszka Radwanska when her beaten quarter-final opponent predicted that Venus would win her sixth Wimbledon title in an all-Williams final this weekend. But the defending champion, while saying, "I do a lot of things right", stressed that both she and younger sister Serena had earned their fame and fortune.

Fourth seed Elena Dementieva handed Italy's Francesca Schiavone a tennis lesson on Tuesday, but it will be the Russian's masterclass in double faulting that will most encourage semi-final opponent Serena Williams.

The Olympic champion took little over an hour to cruise through 6-2 6-2 and reach the last four at Wimbledon for the second year in succession, but averaged over a double fault per service game in the process.

Dinara Safina insisted nobody could now question her world number one status as she made it into the Wimbledon semifinals.

The Russian, who has never won a Grand Slam title, has now reached at least the semifinals in all of the last four majors and is adamant that fact alone proves she has consistently been a top player over the last 12 months.

And she insisted she had the "weapons" to shoot down defending champion Venus Williams in the semifinals.

Serena Williams admitted that the heavy defeat inflicted on her by Victoria Azarenka earlier this year in the Miami final did much to fuel her victory over the Belarusian in their Wimbledon quarter-final.

Venus Williams was in devastating form once again at her very best tournament, crushing Agnieszka Radwanska, 61 62, in the quarterfinals of The Championships on Tuesday to take one step closer to an amazing sixth career singles title at the grass court Grand Slam.

If there was a railroad running down the side of Wimbledon’s  Centre Court one would have feared for Dinara Safina after she double faulted to lose the first set against the German teenager Sabine Lisicki. So distressed did she look that she might have been tempted to follow Anna Karenina and throw herself onto the tracks.

We were set for another Russian tragedy. 

Below is a collection of some of the best quotes from Week 1 of The Championships, straight from the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour stars.

"I wouldn't even mention my name and his in the same sentence."
Serena Williams on parallels between she and Venus and Michael Jackson, in that they all started their careers young, the day after Jackson's passing.

Three-time Grand Slam champion Lindsay Davenport has given birth to her second child.

The former No. 1-ranked player gave birth to a girl named Lauren Andrus Davenport Leach on Saturday morning.

She and husband Jon Leach already have a 2-year-old son, Jagger.

Davenport’s agent Tony Godsick said Sunday that “Lindsay and Lauren are doing great, and Jonny and the other man of the family, Jagger, Lauren’s brother, are ecstatic.”

The 33-year-old Davenport won the 1998 U.S. Open, 1999 Wimbledon and 2000 Australian Open titles.

Venus Williams claims aggression is the key to the success she and sister Serena have enjoyed at Wimbledon over the past decade.

Venus was the first of the pair to reach the final, in 2000, and she has gathered five titles - with Serena picking up two.

Only once in this decade has neither sister appeared in the title match, when Amelie Mauresmo beat Justine Henin in 2006, and in all probability there will be a fourth all-Williams final on Saturday.

It is not often that both players can come off court smiling and looking on the bright side after a match, but this was the case when Dinara Safina defeated Sabine Lisicki in a quarter-final that ebbed and flowed and had the Centre Court crowd on the edge of its seat for nigh on three hours.

The Russian is the world No.1, but the weight of expectation on her is far lower on grass, where her less fluid movements prevent her from being a real threat unless her service is firing on all cylinders – which it certainly was not on Tuesday.

Roger Federer has reached his 21st consecutive Grand Slam semifinal by beating Ivo Karlovic 6-3, 7-5, 7-6 (3) at Wimbledon.

Federer used brilliant returns to break the hard-serving Karlovic once in each of the first two sets Wednesday and took advantage of the Croat’s poor net play in the tiebreaker. The Swiss star set up four match points with a backhand pass and converted the second with a forehand winner.

Federer never faced a break point against the 6-foot-10 Karlovic, who had not lost serve in his first four matches at Wimbledon.