!102543068 Mornin'. This one will be quick, so I can get out of your road before the matches get underway. The big events of yesterday obscured a significant result, the loss by Venus and Serena Williams in the doubles. The sisters, and the calendar year Grand Slam they hoped to produce in 2010, have gone down the tubes. The American girls were put out in the quarterfinals, in three sets (6-4 in the decider) by Elena Vesnina and Vera Zvonareva.
Which makes me fear for Zvonareva's life, should she win her singles semifinal today and find herself opposite Serena in the final on Saturday.
This was a hurtful loss for the sisters, who skipped out of the All-England Club without doing a press conference—not that the pressers are de rigeur for doubles quarterfinalists, but some journalists had put in a request for the meeting. Turns out they might be fined for blowing off the presser. That doesn't particularly trouble me, although it would have been nice to see the transcript for this post. But it's worth noting that a gold-standard doubles Grand Slam (meaning, winning all four majors in the same calendar year with the same partner) is even more rare than a singles Slam.
Who woulda thunk it?
Only one male team has ever competed a Grand Slam, Frank Sedgman and Ken McGregor, and that was way back in 1951—almost two decades before the dawn of the Open era.
And only one team of women has accomplished a Grand Slam—Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver, in 1984—at which time their Grand Slam was part of a winning streak that would include eight consecutive Grand Slam titles.
Maria Bueno, Martina, and the other Martina (Hingis) also completed calendar-year Grand Slams, but with different partners (a grand total of four) for at least one leg of each Slam. But the Sedgman/McGregor Grand Slam stands alone; nobody—not the Bryan brothers, John McEnroe, Mahesh Bhupathi or the Woodys—had even a partial taste of Grand Slam glory.
I hope the Williamses come back and try again next year. One thing I had hoped to do at this tournament was to watch one of their doubles matches and write a post about it, but I guess I'll have to wait until the U.S. Open.
Enjoy the tennis. Feel free to post your comments on the women's singles semifinals below. I hope those self-inflicted sores some of you suffered plucking at your flesh after Roger Federer's loss yesterday are healing up nicely. Don't forget to feed the children and change the water in the dog's bowl.
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-- Pete*