Black Tennis Pros

WIMBLEDON, England -- Serena Williams has been known to say she isn't satisfied with this or that aspect of her game, even after easily winning a match, say, 6-3, 6-2.

So it was somehow refreshing to hear Williams actually praise herself after a victory by that very score over 26th-seeded Maria Kirilenko at Wimbledon on Saturday.

Yes, only five matches since returning to the tour after nearly a full year off because of a series of health scares, Williams produced a performance worthy of the 13-time Grand Slam champion that she is. And then Williams talked the talk of someone finally ready to concede that British bookmakers might very well have been right to make her the pre-tournament favorite.

Asked whether she was surprised by the odds, the seventh-seeded American smiled widely and said: "I wouldn't bet against me."

After hitting 10 aces and compiling a 32-9 edge in winners against Kirilenko, Williams termed the showing her "best I've played since I came back."

"I was a little more consistent, and I played mygame more," said Williams, trying to become the first woman since Steffi Graf in 1991-93 to win three consecutive Wimbledon titles. "Wasn't as tight and nervous and uptight. I was able to relax more today."


She was part of a parade of past champions who breezed into the fourth round Saturday, joined by Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova, who all were straight-set winners, too. Top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki, seeking her first Grand Slam title, and two-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic, who is now 44-1 in 2011, also moved on.

Serena explained she'd been playing tentatively until Saturday.

"You're always thinking, 'I can get hurt again.' You just kind of have to let those thoughts go or anything could happen," Williams said. "And I wasn't thinking that at all today. It was just a big difference."

On Monday, she'll face 2007 runner-up Marion Bartoli. Other fourth-round women's matches include Williams' older sister Venus vs. No. 32 Tsvetana Pironkova, who upset the five-time Wimbledon champion a year ago; Wozniacki vs. No. 24 Dominika Cibulkova; and Sharapova vs. No. 20 Peng Shuai.

After beating Kirilenko -- her first straight-set victory in five matches since returning -- Williams revealed another, if less serious, mishap from her annus horribilis: She scraped her right shoulder and face when she fell off her pink bicycle during a ride near her home in Florida in October.


"I'm thinking, 'Oh, nooooooo,"' Williams recounted, as though replaying her words in slow motion. "All I thought was, 'Don't fall on my face. Don't fall on my face.' When I fell on my face, I was like, 'No!"'
Since then, she's been sticking to stationary bikes.

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During the second round of their Australian Open doubles match, American sisters Venus and Serena Williams got a little more than they bargained for. During one of the changeovers, a "gentleman" clothed only in a t-shirt streaked out onto the court and danced around for roughly a minute much to the hilarity of Venus Williams. The surprised look on her face followed by laughter was priceless. Serena gave the guy the side eye and occasionally peeked at him.

Continuing to laugh at what she had seen, Serena said in an interview, "I just thought, my eyes, my innocent eyes."

"First, I saw him jump over and then I noticed he didn't have underwear on," Williams said after her third-round singles victory over China's Peng Shuai. "I thought, 'OK, I must be seeing things.'

"He ran out on the court. I was thinking, 'I hope he doesn't come,' because he was pretty close to me and V. I was like, 'I hope he doesn't come, he's too close.' Then I thought, 'This is crazy.' Doesn't really happen too much."

On why the man was allowed to be on the court for as long as he was, Australian Open officials stated, "The focus of the on-court security team is always on player protection. They are instructed not to chase offenders as their focus at all times must remain on the players. The on-court actions of the security personnel reflected this focus on player protection."

After the rump shaker left the court, the sisters went on the do what they came to do and defeated Japan's Ayumi Morita and Germany's Martina Muller 6-3, 6-3.

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American Serena Williams still doesn't feel like she's at her "A game," but she's certainly bringing more than her opponents can handle. Serena took out China's Peng Shuai 6-1, 6-4.


Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga continued to over power his opponents. Tsonga knocked out Israeli Dudi Sela 6-4, 6-2, 1-6, 6-1.


American James Blake played a great match against Russia's Igor Andreev. Blake was a man on a mission and defeated Andreev 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-1


Frenchman Gael Monfils was a bit more of his acrobatic self in his match against Spain's Nicolas Almagro. There was a lot of drama in this match, Almagros was not satisfied with a number of the calls. At one point Monfils sat down while waiting for Almagros to hash it out with the officials. Unfortunately all of that griping did not help Almagros' cause, he was defeated 6-4, 6-3, 7-5.

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