Serena and Venus bid to win their eighth title in ten years

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Between them, the Williams sisters have won seven of the last nine ladies’ singles titles at Wimbledon, reaching the final a further four times and winning the ladies’ doubles three times for good measure. With Maria Sharapova already out and Dinara Safina fresh from bottling yet another Grand Slam final at Roland Garros last month, it looks like they could be left fighting each other again. Here’s a look at the five favourites in the betting:

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Serena Williams
Serena is the most successful active women’s tennis player with ten Grand Slams but she hasn’t won Wimbledon since 2003, a Grand Slam drought only topped by her seven year (and counting) wait for a second French Open title. The woman named second seed has only won Wimbledon twice in the last 16 years but they were on both of the occasions that a Williams sister held that position - Venus in 2001 and Serena in 2002. There have been just five occasions in the Open Era where the losing lady has come back to win the following year and the last to do so was Jana Novotna 11 years ago.

Venus Williams
Venus has dominated Wimbledon this decade, reaching seven finals and winning five - including three of the last four - but has a fair way to go before rivalling Martina Navratilova (nine) and Steffi Graf (seven) as SW19’s greatest Open Era champion. She hasn’t been in great form recently, winning none of her last five tournaments and exiting before the quarters in three of her last four. Once Wimbledon starts that becomes irrelevant though - she went nine months without a trophy before last year’s triumph.

Victoria Azarenka
Surprise third-favourite Azarenka hadn’t reached a Grand Slam quarter-final in 13 attempts prior to this month’s French Open and has yet to pass the third round at Wimbledon in three tries. The 19-year-old has improved massively this year though - winning three tournaments and beating Serena Williams, Dinara Safina, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Ana Ivanovic. However, just one woman has won Wimbledon in the Open Era without having previously reached a Grand Slam semi-final and that was Maria Sharapova in 2004, who like Azarenka hadn’t made the quarter-finals until that year’s French Open.

Dinara Safina
At the start of the decade, big things were expected of Marat Safin but despite reaching Grand Slam finals - and actually winning two - and leading the world rankings, his mental fragility held him back. Sister Dinara has faced similar criticism after losing three Grand Slam finals in 12 months - each in straight sets. This month’s French Open loss was particularly devastating because she was destroying opponents in the early rounds, losing just five games in her first four matches and winning four sets to love, before flopping again in the final. The Russian hates grass and has never passed the third round at SW19.

Svetlana Kuznetsova
Kuznetsova triumphed in the French Open to end a near five-year wait for a second Grand Slam but is unlikely to follow up with victory on grass. Steffi Graf used to make winning at Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same year look easy - doing it on four separate occasions - but since her last double in 1996 only Serena, at the peak of her “Serena Slam” winning powers in 2002, has managed it. The Russian has never got past the quarters at Wimbledon and her French Open win was swiftly followed with a straight-sets defeat in her first grass game of the year at Eastbourne against Aleksandra Wozniak.

Posted: June 25th, 2009 by Michael Lintorn |