By Pritha Sarkar
LONDON (Reuters) -The balls kept on listening to Iga Swiatek on Wednesday as the Polish eighth seed walloped Liudmila Samsonova 6-2 7-5 to reach the Wimbledon semi-finals for the first time.
After years of nightmare outings on tennis’ fastest surface, Swiatek appears to have finally conquered her grasscourt demons as she said the “ball has been really listening” to her at Wimbledon this year.
That was certainly in evidence on Wednesday as from 2-2 in the first set, the ball dutifully obeyed Swiatek as winner after winner flew off her racket.
From that stage the five-times Grand Slam champion suffocated her Russian opponent on a hot and sticky Court One, winning seven games in a row with some ferocious forehands from the baseline that left Samsonova gasping for air.
The Russian 19th seed, who was inspired to pick up a tennis racket after watching compatriot Maria Sharapova playing on TV, managed to break the Swiatek serve not once but twice to level the second set at 4-4.
Four games later it was all over as Swiatek skipped around the court in celebration after hitting a brutal service return winner to complete her full set of semi-final appearances at the four majors.
She will face either 35th-ranked Swiss Belinda Bencic or Russian seventh seed Mirra Andreeva for a place in Saturday’s final.
(Reporting by Pritha Sarkar, editing by Ken Ferris)
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