By Chris Oddo | Tuesday July 5, 2016
It took Elena Vesnina 42 majors to crack through to her first quarterfinal, and on Tuesday she one-upped herself by taking out Dominika Cibulkova in straight sets to set up a semifinal clash with Serena Williams.
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No. 50 in the world vs. the No. 1 for over three years running? Sounds like a mismatch if there ever was one. But the bubbly Vesnina is prepared to take a crack at Williams, for better or for worse.
“You have to use your chances against Serena,” she told reporters in an upbeat press conference on Tuesday after defeating Dominika Cibulkova, 6-2, 6-2, in a cool 77 minutes. “If she's giving you chances, you need to be there. If she's serving aces all over the place, hitting winners, nothing you can do. You just have to stick and wait and be there, stick with her.”
Vesnina, who is winless in four previous matches against the 21-time major champion, says she can take inspiration from Angelique Kerber’s victory over Williams in this year’s Australian Open final, a match that she watched from a courtside vantage point. “I was watching her final against Angelique in Australian Open on the court,” she said. “It was great atmosphere over there. I saw how Angelique, she was sticking into her game from the first till the last. She was not giving up. Yeah, maybe Serena didn't play her best tennis, and that was the key, and Angelique used her chances on that moment. Maybe that's going to be the key for me as well.”
This may be Vesnina’s biggest ever singles match, and facing Serena Williams on Wimbledon’s Centre Court is surely a daunting challenge, but it’s not like the 29-year-old has amassed any Grand Slam hardware. Vesnina, he world’s No.7-ranked doubles player, has had a fantastic career in that “other” tennis discipline that often gets overlooked by mainstream fans and mainstream media. The Russian has won two Grand Slam doubles titles and two Grand Slam mixed doubles titles, and she’s also reached another six other Grand Slam doubles finals plus two more in mixed. At Wimbledon, Vesnina has played the doubles final twice and reached the Wimbledon mixed final twice.
Those doubles triumphs have provided her with a wealth of experience that Vesnina says helped propel her singles career.
“It gives you a lot,” Vesnina said. “You can practice your game. You're still in the tournament. It gives you some confidence. Some wins. You have the trophy at the end of the week. It gives you some self belief. It gives you some positive thinking. It gives you, like, confidence in your shots as well because you're practicing serves, volleys, returns.”
Vesnina says it has helped her on grass particularly because she has so much experience playing at the net. “It also helped me in the singles because I know that I'm coming to the net, I'm confident,” she said. “I know what to do there.”
There’s really nothing that can prepare anybody for the challenge of facing Serena Williams in a Wimbledon semifinal. Williams is 27-4 at this stage of Grand Slams over the course of her illustrious career, and surely Vesnina will need every crumb of belief she can cobble together as she takes Centre Court on Thursday.
Thanks to a lot of big wins on a lot of big courts, Vesnina at least has the confidence that comes with them, and from producing a career-best result at SW19 this fortnight.