The quarter finals of Wimbledon 2015 get underway this evening when Russian fourth seed Maria Sharapova takes on the powerful American Coco Vandeweghe. Join The Roar for live scores and commentary of this match from 10pm (AEST).
Sharapova will look to use her massive experience, being a former winner of Wimbledon, to outplay Vandeweghe this evening. There is a reason she has been at the pointy end of the world rankings for such an extended period of time.
Her campaign so far at Wimbledon has been an extremely dominant one, not losing a set across any of her four matches, albeit against much lesser players than what she will come up against in Vandeweghe. Her third round effort against the seeded Irina Camelia Begu was a brilliant one, only losing seven games over the two sets and generally dominating.
The only question that might be hanging over Sharapova’s game plan is whether a lack of real high quality opponents could hamper her play.
Vandeweghe is one of the most powerful players in the women’s game and she will look to use this power to catch Sharapova off guard. Her serve and stroke play will need to be at the maximum level in order to defeat Sharapova in this one.
Unlike Sharapova, Vandeweghe has not won at Wimbledon and in fact this is her furthest foray into the greatest Grand Slam of them all. Before this year, in her four previous attempts, Vandeweghe had never made it out of the second round.
Overall a third round appearance at the Australian Open earlier this year is her best Grand Slam performance.
Vandeweghe, ranked 47th in the world heading into Wimbledon, has also had a fantastic run through the tournament in her first four rounds, not dropping a set to date. She has, however, played some very good players including a third round match up against Samantha Stosur and a fourth round match against Lucie Safarova.
Those two wins, plus her solid pre-tournament form indicated that she is in good touch and will be looking forward to the challenge of taking on Sharapova.
Interestingly, before this quarter-final match up in The Championships of 2015, Sharapova and Vandeweghe have never faced off before. It makes it even harder to assess who will win this match, however the betting odds have Sharapova as the favourite.
It won’t get any easier for the winner of this quarter-final clash, moving onto the semi-final with a likely match against the first seed Serena Williams. In saying that she does have to get over Victoria Azarenka.
Prediction
Vandeweghe will aim to use her power to put Sharapova out of it, however the experience and skill of the Russian should see her move into a tough semi-final on Thursday. Expect a tough, three set epic encounter though.
Sharapova in three sets.
Join The Roar for live scores and commentary from 10pm (AEST).
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