Serena shaping up for surge

TENNIS:THE CONSENSUS among former champions going into Wimbledon was that if Serena Williams was still around after the first week then the rest of the field would be in serious trouble. The bad news for the American's rivals is that not only is she still around, but that she is also beginning to look like the Serena of old.

Considering everything Williams has been through in the past year, it is remarkable she is even here. Two operations on the foot she injured when stepping on glass at a restaurant in Munich last summer were followed by a life-threatening illness resulting from a blood clot. Having not picked up a racket in anger for a year, she is through to week two and the bookmakers’ favourite to win Wimbledon number five and grand slam title number 14.

The biggest thing in Williams’s favour is her mental strength. Time and time again the 29-year-old has been able to dig herself out of trouble and her opponents know it is not good enough just to have the game – they have to match her will.

As Chris Evert, three times a Wimbledon champion, said before a ball was struck: “If she gets through the first week, she may be facing (Caroline) Wozniacki or (Victoria) Azarenka and these are players that she’s owned, players that will be intimidated by her.”

Evert thought it would be too tough for Williams to win the title and in the first two rounds the American dropped sets to players she would usually brush aside without breaking sweat. Though she said her third-round victory over Maria Kirilenko of Russia on Saturday was her best performance yet, Williams’ breathing has been laboured and she knows winning another four matches in six days to take the championship is an enormous task. “I’m here and I’m alive and I don’t take any moment for granted,” she said.

We will learn more about her chances today when she plays the 2007 runner-up Marion Bartoli for a place in the last eight. The Frenchwoman, for all her eccentricities, is a fine player who will be less intimidated than most, despite her words. “She’s the ultimate competitor,” Bartoli said. “You never count her out of a match. It will be the ultimate challenge for me but I think if I just have the same attitude and same spirit, no matter what the results will be, I can still be proud of myself.”

Also blocking Serena Williams’s path is Maria Sharapova, the champion in 2004 and back to her best after injury troubles. The Russian, who takes on Peng Shuai of China today, is probably the only one who can match the Williams sisters for mental strength.

Serena Williams and Sharapova can meet in the semi-final but the Russian, though she is the player in form, is trying to deflect attention from that possibility. “I haven’t really put as much expectations on me, based on the fact I haven’t been past the fourth round for a few years,” the fifth seed said.

“I’m happy at this point that I got to where I did last year and hopefully this year I can go a step further and even more.”

Wozniacki, the world number one, is one win away from a quarter-final against Sharapova, and in the other half of the draw with Venus Williams, herself back after four months out through injury, has been improving with every round. She has been more impressive than her sister so far and having won the title five times, is an obvious threat. But she faces a tough task today when she plays Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria, the woman who knocked her out in 2010 and who beat second seed Vera Zvonareva to make it through to this year’s last 16.

“Last year, I don’t feel I competed well,” Venus Williams said. “Regardless of how I play, I know I’ll be competing this time. I’m ready to bring my best game. Last year I think I just got unhappy with how I was playing and I let that affect my game. This year I won’t let that happen.