This is a match of tests for Radwanska. First, has she bounced all the way back from the half-year slump that sent her tumbling out of the Top 10? We’ll find out against Muguruza, who beat her twice during that slump, in January and February. Second, has Radwanska bounced back, finally, from the crushing, three-set semifinal loss she suffered to Sabine Lisicki in this round two years ago, when she knew that the only thing standing between her and a Wimbledon title was Marion Bartoli in the final?
Aga will have the same task in this semi that she did against Lisicki: Outwitting a bigger hitter. The problem is that Muguruza isn’t as erratic as the German, or the woman that Radwanska beat on Tuesday, Madison Keys. Will Muguruza be nervous in her first Slam semi, on Centre Court? Surely. Will it be enough to throw her newfound grass-court game off? I’m betting against it. Winner: Muguruza
Which of these two statements from Serena Williams concerning her semifinal with Maria Sharapova do you believe?
“For me, I don’t feel like I have any pressure going into this match. We both lost early here last year. We’re both kind of enjoying this moment and at the end of the day one of us will be in the final.”
OR
“I love playing Maria.”
I’m going to go with the latter. Who wouldn’t love playing someone you have beaten 16 times in a row? And while I know that Serena has banned all talk of the calendar-year Grand Slam within her earshot, the idea that she’s just going to “enjoy this moment” with Maria is...a stretch.
Does Sharapova have any reason to hope? She has beaten Serena at Wimbledon, of course, in the 2004 final. Though that might not help her much now. Sharapova says that whenever she sees a clip of herself winning that match, she thinks, “Oh, that really happened?” But Sharapova also gave Serena a good run when they met here in 2010, losing the first-set tiebreaker 11-9, and she took the world No. 1 to another tiebreaker the last time they played, in the Australian Open final earlier this year.
Will Maria do any better on Thursday? You never know: Serena, despite not losing a match at a major in the last 12 months, was all over the map in Paris, and has had her ups and downs at Wimbledon as well. Just because she found her form in her last match doesn’t mean she’ll carry it over to this one. But Serena also looked extraordinarily determined to come back and win against Victoria Azarenka in the quarters, and she was able to raise her game to its absolute highest level to do it. She won’t need to go that high to beat Sharapova. Winner: S. Williams