Sharapova sails through to last four
FORMER champion Maria Sharapova reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon for the first time since 2006 and admitted she had encountered a lot of “dead ends” on her route back to the big time.
The 24-year-old was Wimbledon champion as a teenager in 2004 and also has US and Australian Open successes on her resume. But she lost form and fitness after her early spurt of success.
After yesterday’s 6-1, 6-1 thrashing of Dominika Cibulkova she said: “I would have loved for it not to have taken this long but I’m not complaining.
“It’s the road that you take. It’s not always straight. There are a lot of zigzags. A lot of the time you feel like it’s a dead end.
“I’ve worked really hard to get to this stage, but I’m not saying this is where I want to end. I want to keep going.”
Sharapova faces Sabine Lisicki tomorrow after the German defeated Serena Williams’s conqueror Marion Bartoli 6-4, 6-7 (4-7), 6-1. In the other semi-final Petra Kvitovawill will meet the highest seed left in the draw, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus.