[1]Serena Williams became the latest victim of this year’s Wimbledon giant-killings as the world no. 1 slumped to a stunning 6-2, 1-6, 6-4 defeat against German 23rd seed Sabine Lisicki in the fourth round on Monday.
Williams followed second seed Victoria Azarenka and world no. 3 Maria Sharapova out of the women’s tournament, while defending champion Roger Federer and two-time Wimbledon winner Rafael Nadal suffered shock exits from the men’s draw in the first week.
Since an embarrassing first round loss against Virginie Razzano at last year’s French Open, Williams had won 77 of her 80 matches, collecting the Wimbledon, US Open, French Open and Olympic titles in the process.
The 31-year-old, a 16-time Grand Slam champion, had swept through the first week, dropping just 11 games in her opening three matches to extend her winning run to 34 matches, but she had no answer to Lisicki’s big-serve and booming ground-strokes.
“I’m still shaking, I’m so happy”, said Lisicki, breaking into tears.
“Serena played a fantastic match. She’s such a tough opponent and it’s just an amazing feeling to win.”
Serena felt she let victory slip away, saying: “I definitely made too many errors, but she was playing with nothing to lose. When you play with such freedom this kind of thing can happen.
“I felt I was on the verge of winning in the third set but I was physically unable to hold serve after that.”
Lisicki, a semi-finalist in 2011 who has never been past the fourth round at any other Grand Slam, will play Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi.
Kanepi had shattered Britain’s dreams of a first woman in the Wimbledon quarter-finals for 29 years, beating unseeded Laura Robson 7-6 (8/6), 7-5.
Robson was bidding to become the first British woman to reach a Grand Slam quarter-final since Jo Durie at Wimbledon in 1984, but the Australia-born teenager left Court One crying tears of frustration.
Former champion Petra Kvitova booked her fourth consecutive Wimbledon quarter-final appearance with a 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 win over Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro.
Czech eighth seed Kvitova, who won Wimbledon in 2011, overpowered Spanish 19th seed Suarez Navarro with 23 winners and will face Belgian 20th seed Kirsten Flipkens for a place in the semi-finals.
Chinese sixth seed Li Na raced into the quarter-finals with a 6-2, 6-0 demolition of Italian 11th seed Roberta Vinci.
The 2011 French Open champion took just 55 minutes to win, matching her Wimbledon best, having made the quarter-finals in 2006 and 2010.
American 17th seed Sloane Stephens reached her first Wimbledon quarter-final after battling back to beat Puerto Rico’s Monica Puig 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.
Ferrer enters qFs, Poland in double joy
Spanish fourth seed David Ferrer reached the quarter-finals for the second successive year while Jerzy Janowicz and Lukasz Kubot set-up an all-Polish showdown for a place in the last four.
Ferrer fired 53 winners in his 6-7 (6/8), 7-6 (7/3), 6-1, 6-1 win over Croatia’s unseeded Ivan Dodig.
Ferrer will be playing in his seventh consecutive Grand Slam quarter-final.
Janowicz, the 24th seed, defeated 3-6, 7-6 (7/1), 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 Jurgen Melzer of Austria.
He was joined in the last eight just moments later when 31-year-old Kubot, the lowest-ranked player left at 130 in the world, defeated France’s 111-ranked Adrian Mannarino, 4-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. The last Pole to reach the last-eight at Wimbledon was Wojtek Fibak in 1980.
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