| 01 July 2011
Lisicki came out to an electrifying start smashing winners and dominating with her big serve. She took a 3-0 lead and was a point away from 4-0 when Sharapova dug in her heels and clawed her way back. Powerful and accurate groundstrokes were the order of the day for Maria. Lisicki couldn't handle the pace and quickly went from likely hero to zero as she struggled to keep up with the barrage. The only light for her was the continued double faults from her opponent, 13 in all. It seemed that she was always in with a chance. But even the success of Lisickis deftest drop shots quickly dried up as she started to overuse the tactic during the second set.
The crowd were full of sighs and anticipation as they waited, in vain, for the match to come alive. And even one of the BBC commentators stated 'It was a drab affair'. After the match Sue Barker and Lindsay Davenport did their best to talk politely about the match, but to all that had watched it was a painful attempt at masking the reality of what had been a dire spectacle.
In the other Semi-final the squeals were equally troubling to the ears. Azarenka, who has the sweetest, softest voice in interview, manages to go off like a deranged firework each time she smacks the ball. Her opponent Kvitova, who thankfully keeps the noise down, looked like she was going to destroy her as she swung her lefty serve and pounded winners all over the place. Kvitova stormed the set 6-1.
Azarenka, who had demolished her previous opponent with comparatively big hitting, looked completely outclassed by the impressive Czech. Though Kvitova nearly imploded on herself as she threw away the second set with a string of unforced errors. Thankfully she recovered to rescue us from the horrific prospect of a Sharapova/Azarenka final. Kvitova took the match 6-1 3-6 6-2.
And finally, the BBC has announced that it has launched a gadget silencer that reduces the noise of the grunts from the players.
The launch of the product comes just days after the head of Wimbledon said "female tennis players who grunt too loudly are putting off their opponents and spoiling the games for the spectators". Amen to that.
Surely now after so many years of debate on this issue isn't it about time that something more permanent was done, perhaps by the WTA, to prohibit this unneccesary and unsightly part of the game. Then perhaps, we can focus on the quality of the tennis and work on making womens tennis more entertaining to the eyes and less painful to the ears.
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