Wimbledon Match of the Week: A look back at the Li-Lisicki Classic

A few days back, Wimbledon center court witnessed a ladies singles match of the highest quality, rivaling men’s tennis. No.3 seed China’s Li Na and Germany’s Sabine Lisicki were the protagonists. The German rewrote the history books by serving the fastest ever for a woman at 124 mph. She was supreme in her serving. Her first serve bombs were unplayable. In addition, her forehands were also equally devastating. On the other hand, Li Na was supremely confident on the back of her Paris triumph and her highest seeding in a Grand Slam

The new darling in tennis town

Li Na could tame Lisicki in the first set because she is in the form of her life. Li’s serves were not as powerful as the 21 yr old German’s but, nevertheless it was very consistent serving by Li. Li’s groundstrokes had the clockwork precision associated with Chinese athletes in general. All she needed was a single break of serve at 3-4 on the German’s serve and Li served out the set 6-3 after saving 2 crucial break points.

The pattern continued in the 2^nd set but this time it was Lisicki who got the early break of serve. She consolidated the break till the point where she was serving for the set at 5-3. But some inconsistent serving and erratic groundstrokes resulted in Li Na restoring parity at 4-5. When Li was serving to stay in the 2^nd set, Lisicki produced some marvelous groundstrokes. It was a titanic struggle in this game for both the players. But the sheer persistence of the young German saw her take the 2^nd set 6-4. A crucial wrong line call against Li, followed by the replay of the entire point, aided Lisicki’s cause too.

Lisicki was pumped up at the start of the 3^rd set and continued to trouble Li with her big serves and groundstrokes. But, Li got the crucial break at 2-2. Sill Lisicki continued to serve like Goran Ivanisevic and Andy Roddick rolled into one. She showed this facet particularly at 3-5 when she had to really fire some big bombs to hold her serve.

In the next game, when Li was serving for the match, Lisicki broke again to level the set at 5-5 and bring another twist to the plot. But Li’s display of talent was hard to be curbed and combined with some over-anxiety on the German’s part; the score soon read 6-5 in Li’s favor with another chance for her to serve out the match.

Now it was the 3^rd seed’s turn to spray the ball around and the score was 6-6 in no time. This match had officially turned into a classic. Lisicki comfortably held serve to go up 7-6. She was serving her first serves at 76% regularity. Amazing!!!

Soon, Lisicki had 2 match points due to her amazing hitting. Li saved both with typical confidence and poise, including an ace. But Lisicki kept coming back. It was her 3^rd match point now. No mistakes on this occasion as Li hit the ball long. The youngster was thrilled to bits and acknowledged the marvelous reception that she was getting from the center court amidst bucketful of happy tears. She deserved it.

Deserving to the core …

At the end of a highly entertaining match where both the players went for broke, it was the newbie from Germany that prevailed in the end. The first official upset of Wimbledon 2011 had been created and a new star was born. Lisicki would be the crowd’s darling in the coming days, as Wimbledon heads into the second week. She will potentially be facing superstar Serena Williams in what promises to be a rocking quarterfinal. For that, she has to get past Petra Cetkovska and she should manage that quite easily given her current bull run.