London: Serena Williams who is busy juggling the job of a mother and maintaining her tennis career entered the Wimbledon women’s singles final for the 10th time in her career with a fluent 6-2, 6-4 victory over Germany’s Julia Georges, Thursday.
The American will meet another German, Angelique Kerber who proved too solid for error-strewn Latvian Jelena Ostapenko and won 6-3, 6-3. It will be a repeat of the 2016 finals which Serena won.
Even though, Serena appeared anything, but match fit, she had the weapons to overcome Georges. Her serve proved too strong for the German and then at crucial junctures, she came up with winners which had her opponent on the wrong foot.
The only time when Georges posed a problem for Serena was at 5-3 with the American leading. Serving for the match, Serena was broken, but she promptly broke back the Georges serve to seal a spot in the final.
Earlier, Rafa Nadal edged out Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro 7-5, 6-7(7-9), 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 in a Centre Court epic and will meet Novak Djokovic in the semifinals. Djokovic leads Nadal 26-25 in their head-to-head meetings.
“I think it was great quality tennis and in the final set there were some amazing points,” said 2008 and 2010 champion Nadal. “Sorry to Juan Martin, he’s an amazing opponent and player. In some ways he deserves to win as well.”
US ninth seed Isner made the last four stage of a Major for the first time and set-up a match against South African Kevin Anderson with a 6-7(5-7) 7-6(9-7), 6-4, 6-3 win over 2016 runner-up Milos Raonic.
At a glance
Serena Williams bt Julia Georges 6-2, 6-4
Angelique Kerber bt Jelena Ostapenko 6-3, 6-3
Rafa Nadal bt Juan Martin del Potro 7-5, 6-7(7-9), 4-6, 6-4, 6-4
John Isner bt Milos Raonic 6-7(5-7) 7-6(9-7), 6-4, 6-3