Venus Williams has notched wins over Elise Mertens and Qiang Wang before coming into this match. Though she is the only defending champion left in the draw, her first two rounds weren’t awfully impressive. Venus hasn’t seemed to have her best game yet.
Naomi Osaka reached her first 3rd Round at Wimbledon after her 6-1 0-6 6-4 over Barbora Strycova, now reaching a 3rd Round at all slams. Venus is playing her 20th Wimbledon, and is facing the 19 year old Osaka.
Both players have a strong serve and a hard hitting game. Venus took an early break for 3-1, but got broken back at 4-2. Venus and Osaka very close to unbeatable on their serves and the first set went to a tiebreak. Osaka took a 3-0 lead in the tiebreak, and it looked like the American was in trouble. The 37-year-old who has been playing Wimbledon since before her opponent was born channeled her experience, and won the next 7 points, and the set.
Osaka didn’t take her chance in the beginning of the second set, a break point at 2-1. Williams persevered and got a break for 4-3. From there, Venus was unstoppable, firing winners left and right. Williams won the match 7-6(3) 6-4 after 1 hour and 27 minutes.
Next opponent for Williams will be 27th seed Ana Konjuh. Konjuh is also a player that wasn’t born yet when Williams played her first Wimbledon. The young Croat upset 8th seed Dominika Cibulkova 7-6(3) 3-6 6-4 and seems to be in good form here.
Cibulkova is continuing to struggle in 2017 and still hasn’t won 3 matches in a row. The Slovak seems to be in real trouble as she defends a huge amount of points in the latter part of the season, including Singapore. Cibulkova holds No. 9 ranking right now, but is No. 24 in the Race. Unless she steps it up and has an incredible second half, she might not even get a chance to defend in Singapore.
