Serena Williams won the latest instalment of her rivalry with sister Venus as the world No 1 eased into the Wimbledon quarter-finals with a 6-4, 6-3 victory on Monday.
Serena, bidding for her sixth Wimbledon title, took just 67 minutes to see off Venus on Centre Court and will play Victoria Azarenka or Belinda Bencic for a place in the semi-finals.
The 33-year-old player hit 36 winners and 10 aces to secure her 14th win in 26 meetings with her older sister, but it was clear neither sibling enjoyed the experience.
“It’s hard to feel excited about (beating) someone you root for all the time no matter what and you love so much and is your best friend in the world,” Serena said.
“It’s never easy to play someone you love and care about.
“But I don’t know how many more moments like this we’ll have. I plan on playing for years but you never know if we’ll have the opportunity to face each other. So I just took the moment in.”
With the awkward family reunion out of the way, Serena can refocus on her bid to rewrite the history books.
The American, whose record for the year now stands at a remarkable 36-1, remains on course to become the first woman to win the French Open and Wimbledon back-to-back since she last achieved that feat in 2002.
She is on a 25-match winning run at the majors, a blistering sequence that brought her the 2014 US Open crown and the Australian and French Open titles this year.
Serena will hold all four grand slam titles at the same time if she wins a sixth Wimbledon crown on Saturday.
That would also leave the 20-time grand slam champion needing only to win the US Open in August to become the first woman since Steffi Graf in 1988 to land all four majors in the same year.
Venus, 35, and Serena have combined to win 27 major titles, including five for each at Wimbledon.
But, after regularly duelling for the sport’s top prizes – they have played in eight major finals – this was only the third clash of the Williams clan in the last six years, their earliest ever at Wimbledon, and their first major showdown since the 2009 Wimbledon final won by Serena.
Keys wins after scare
Madison Keys was the first woman through to the women’s quarter-finals at Wimbledon with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 win over qualifier Olga Govortsova yesterday. The American 21st seed was stunned by the Belarusian world No 122 in the first set on Court 18 but turned it around to win the fourth-round contest in an hour and 33 minutes. Keys faces Agnieszka Radwanska, the Polish 13th seed. Keys, 20, reached her first grand slam semi-final at this year’s Australian Open. Govortsova, 26, was the only qualifier to reach the last 16.
Gasquet gets angry
Richard Gasquet was not happy about wasting two match points during his fourth-round win over Nick Kyrgios, smashing his racket in anger after dropping the third set of their fourth-round match. Gasquet was up 6-4 in the tiebreaker but the Australian saved both match points before converting his fourth set point to take the match to a fourth. The Frenchman then slammed his racket into the ground and once more against his chair, breaking the frame. He eventually won 7-5, 6-1, 6-7, 7-6.
A minute silence
Wimbledon will hold a minute of silence at 11.30am today to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the London bombings. On July 7, 2005, several suicide bombings killed 52 people on the London transport network. It will be the second minute of silence at this year’s tournament. Last week, the club fell silent to remember the victims of the Tunisia attack, which killed 38 people, including 30 British tourists.
Golfers’ day out
It was a good day to bring the golf clubs as well as tennis rackets to Wimbledon. A number of top European golfers were in the Royal Box yesterday. The line-up included Miguel Angel Jimenez, Paul McGinley, Ian Poulter, Sam Torrance, Jamie Donaldson, Stephen Gallacher and Lee Westwood. The list did not include Rory McIlroy, who ruptured a ligament in his left ankle while playing football, a week before the start of his British Open title defence.
American success
With Serena Williams, Madison Keys and CoCo Vandeweghe winning their matches yesterday, this will be the first time three American women have reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals since Serena, Lindsay Davenport and Jennifer Capriati did it in 2004.
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