Owning the Moment, Lisicki Bounces Serena Williams from Wimbledon

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Owning the Moment, Lisicki Bounces Serena Williams from Wimbledon

By Chris Oddo

(July 1, 2013) -- In a Wimbledon fortnight that has been rife with bracket-busting upsets, German Sabine Lisicki pulled the ultimate shocker on Monday with a 6-2, 1-6, 6-4 victory over five-time Wimbledon champion Serena Williams.

The win snaps a run of 34 consecutive victories for Williams, and ends her bid to win her fourth title at Wimbledon in the last five years.

“I'm still shaking,” an exultant Lisicki said, breaking into tears in her post-match interview with the BBC. “I'm so happy. It was an amazing feeling to win the match, the crowd was so amazing.”

After two one-sided sets, Williams and Lisicki would contest a decider to remember, trading breaks—and body blows—as tension mounted.

Down the stretch, after ending a streak of eight straight games dropped, Lisicki would mount an improbable and electric comeback, breaking Williams three straight times to emerge from a 3-0 deficit with a chance to serve for the match at 5-4.

Lisicki's late surge was spearheaded by a fight back from 40-15 with Williams serving and holding a 3-1 lead in the final set.

Williams would reply with a break of her own to lead 4-2, but Lisicki broke Williams for a second straight time when a forehand passing shot glanced off the outstretched racquet of Williams.

In the next game, Williams threatened to break back and give herself a chance to serve for the match, but Lisicki played a magical sequence from 0-40 to force deuce, cracking back-to-back winners before hammering two huge serves to level the set at four games apiece.

“I think that I didn't play the big points good enough,” Williams lamented afterwards. “I didn't do what I do best. I think I had a little hesitation, and that explains it.”

With pressure at a fever pitch, Williams could not stop the Lisicki push in the next game, and when she made a costly overhead error on break point at 4-4, the German had earned a chance to serve for the match.

Like so many of her opportunities at Wimbledon since 2009, Lisicki would make the most of it, crumbling face-first in ecstasy on the grass when her final forehand winner eluded the racquet of Williams.

“I was just fighting for every single point and hanging in there,” Lisicki would later say. “It's unbelievable.”

Williams' exit, coupled with week one departures of second-seeded Victoria Azarenka and third-seeded Maria Sharapova, leaves giant craters in both halves of the women's draw. Gone are the three women who many considered as the only possible winners this year, replaced by a gang of opportunistic women, many of whom will be gunning for their first Grand Slam title when quarterfinal play gets underway on Tuesday at the All England Club.

For the fourth time in the last five years, Lisicki will be a part of that gang.

Long known for Wimbledon hair-raisers and emotionally tinged cliff-hangers, Lisicki was expected by many to provide Williams with her biggest challenge of the fortnight. But few saw an upset of such epic proportions coming, given Williams indomitable form of late and the sheer magnanimity of the 16-time Grand Slam champion's grass-court game.

But credit to Lisicki, who now owns a stellar 17-4 record at Wimbledon with four quarterfinals to her name, for playing the type of courageous tennis that has long made her a fan favorite in London.

At times, it feels like Wimbledon is the stage on which Lisicki's own personal fairy tale is destined to take place. For the second year in a row, the German has defeated the World No. 1 in the round of 16 at Wimbledon. For the fourth time she has defeated the reigning French Open champion. While she's never reached the last eight of any other Grand Slam, Lisicki has reached her fourth at Wimbledon.

Attitude, more than anything, has been her impetus.

From the start of the two hour and four minute encounter, Lisicki prowled the confines like Wimbledon's Centre Court was as much her house as it was Williams'. She giggled and played to the crowd. She smiled, exhibiting the very looseness and killer instinct that Williams seemed to be lacking on this day. Unlike so many of Williams' deer-in-the-headlights victims at Grand Slams, Lisicki was a picture of rebellion on Monday—not against Williams necessarily, but against cowing to her greatness. When Lisicki mades shots, she pumped her fists; when she missed, she squealed in anguish, proclaiming to all in attendance that yes, in fact, this was her court, too.

Four aces and 15 blistering winners later, Lisicki had put her stamp on the match in more than just a psychological way, taking a one-sided first set in 44 minutes and saving all four of the break points she faced.

The territorial/psychological battle had begun.

But in the second, her level would drop significantly, giving Williams an opportunity to reassess her dominance on the game's grandest stage. After running off eight consecutive games, another imperious victory looked to be a foregone conclusion for Williams.

“I felt that I was on the verge of winning,” Williams mused to reporters after the match. “I felt really good and really confident. At that point I just was physically unable to hold serve.”

She added: “You have to be ready and willing to hold your serve. I wasn't willing or able, probably didn't even want to hold my serve today.”

Surely, she wanted to.

But on this manic Monday, Lisicki and her magic powers simply wouldn't let it happen.

(Photo Credit: AP)