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Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani advanced to the women’s doubles final at Wimbledon with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Japan’s Shuko Aoyama and Taiwan’s En-shuo Liang on Friday.
Dabrowski and Stefani, the second seeds, have yet to lose a set at the grass-court Grand Slam in London.
Aoyama and Liang, seeded 13th at the All England Club, were an even match for Dabrowski and Stefani to start the contest until failing to defend the only break point of the first set in the final game.
Dabrowski and Stefani, who didn’t face break point, earned another crucial break to go up 5-3 in the second set, then forced their opponents into an error to convert their first match point.
Dabrowski and Stefani have three tournament wins this season, but lost to top-ranked Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend in the French Open semifinals and fell to Anna Danilina and Aleksandra Krunic in the final four at the Australian Open.
They will face either 10th seeds Hanyu Guo of China and Kristina Mladenovic of France or the Chinese pair of Xinyu Jiang and Yifan Xu in Sunday’s final.
Stefani and Dabrowski will avoid another meeting with French Open champions Katerina Siniakova of Czechia and Taylor Townsend of the United States at the tournament after the top seeds were upset by Guo and Mladenovic in the quarterfinals.
Siniakova and Townsend have defeated Dabrowski and Stefani twice this season, including in the semifinals at Roland Garros.
Zverev advances to men’s final
Alexander Zverev will play for another major trophy, a month after winning his first Grand Slam title at the French Open.
Zverev ended the “Ferytale” run of British wild card Arthur Fery with an overpowering 7-6 (0), 6-2, 6-4 victory in the semifinals at the All England Club Friday.
“This Grand Slam has always been the one that I struggled with the most and all of a sudden I’m in the final of Wimbledon,” the 29-year-old German said. “We got one more match to go on Sunday and that’s what the focus is on.”
Zverev, whose breakthrough at Roland Garros came in his fourth Grand Slam final, is attempting to become the first man in the professional era (since 1968) to win his second title at the next event immediately their first major trophy.
In Sunday’s final, Zverev will meet either defending champion Jannik Sinner or seven-time Wimbledon winner Novak Djokovic, who were up next on Centre Court.
Djokovic beat Sinner in their last meeting in five sets in the Australian Open semifinals.
“It’s not going to be easy no matter who it is against,” Zverev said. “But I have to trust myself and I have to believe that I can win and that’s what I’m going to do.”
The 114th-ranked Fery, who grew up five minutes from the All England Club and played at Stanford University, was attempting to become the first wild card to reach the final since Goran Ivanisevic won Wimbledon in 2001.
Another hot day on the court
“I think this was just the beginning of his career and I really think that he’s going to do amazing things in this sport,” Zverev said of Fery.
It was another warm day in southwest London, with the temperature rising to about 29 C. It was also breezy and a bit cloudier than in recent days.
Zverev did well not to let the pro-Fery crowd get behind the local player too much and a double fault from Fery early in the first-set tiebreaker put Zverev in control.
The six-foot-six Zverev was also able to dominate with his serve, which he cranked up to 224 kilometres per hour.
The five-foot-nine Fery, by comparison, was serving closer to 193 kph.
The British spectators did their best to encourage Fery early on, chanting his name between points as they sipped their Pimm’s under their wide-brimmed hats.
At one point early on, chair umpire Marijana Veljovic had to tell the crowd to pipe down.
“Ladies and gentlemen: Do not react, if possible, until the end of the point,” Veljovic said, before adding later in the first set: “Once again, do not react during the rally. That’s very disturbing for both players,” which was met with a round of applause.
‘One of the best crowds’
When it was over, Fery walked off to a standing ovation and applauded the crowd in return.
“I know that 99.99 per cent of the stadium was wanting Arthur to win. But it was still such an incredible atmosphere. It was such a fair crowd as well,” Zverev said. “A lot of crowds in the world can take an example of this crowd. It’s one of the best crowds to play tennis in front of.”
Zverev had previously never been past the fourth round at Wimbledon.
Now he’s the first German man to reach the final of the grass-court Grand Slam since Boris Becker lost to Pete Sampras in 1995.
The last German man to win Wimbledon was Michael Stich, who beat Becker in the 1991 final.
Becker, the three-time Wimbledon champion, wished Zverev “congratulations” in German on X: tweeting “Gluckwunsch Sascha !!!,” using the player’s nickname.
The scheduled 11 a.m. ET women’s final on Saturday features two Czech players, Karolina Muchova against Linda Noskova.
