Big win for Sara and Roberta at the Australian Open today: they beat Venus and Serena Williams 3-6, 7-6, 7-5. While it might seem strange to call the 1st seed beating the 12th seed an upset, that’s definitely what it was, based on how the Williams sisters played last year, and also based on their 6-1, 6-1 win over Sara and Roby at the Olympics.
Today, the Italian girls played well from the beginning. Sara’s serve was vulnerable, but so was Venus’, so the match stayed close. After losing the first set with one break difference, Sara and Roberta kept fighting in the second set, also when they were 3-5 behind. They broke Venus again, and then they also broke Serena and took the set to a tiebreak. In the tiebreak, they played great; they won it 7-1. Then they seemed to start the third set with a slight lapse in focus and went 0-3 down. However, as always the girls kept fighting, and Serena and Venus were struggling to maintain their lead. Sara and Roby levelled the match, and then broke again. At 5-4, Roby served for the match, but got broken. Promptly, Serena got broken as well, and in the next game Sara served out the match.
A hard-fought win, over a very strong team, needless to say the girls were very happy after their win! You can listen to an interview here.
In the semifinal, Sara and Roberta will play against Makarova/Vesnina, the 4th seeded team from Russia. The match will be played on wednesday, 4th match after 11am (not before 3.30pm) on the Margaret Court Arena.
There are also a few pictures from the match in the photogallery.