Golden set – that’s what Yaroslava Shvedova produced today without even realizing it. The Kazakh won 24 straight points against none other than tenth seed Sara Errani, runner-up at the latest Roland Garros, and bageled the Italian in the first set of their third-round Wimbledon encounter without losing a single point. Never before in the Open Era did a WTA player achieve such a feat.
The set lasted only 15 minutes! To make it even better, in that set Errani made only one unforced error! No winners, though. Shvedova hit 14 winners to zero unforced errors.
Despite the impressive streak of points won, only after the match, in the gym, did Shvedova learn that she won the set in such a way and she never even knew that a golden set existed.
Supposedly, there was a golden set in men’s tennis in 1980, but in women’s as far as in the 1940s, before the Open Era.
Let’s not forget to mention that wildcard Shvedova won the match, after a closer second set, 6-0 6-4. Her fourth-round opponent will be Serena Williams, who made a landmark in her career as well, by hitting 23 aces in the 6-7(5) 6-2 9-7 third-round victory against Zheng Jie, bettering her previous record of 20 aces. (source: WTA Tour, photo: © Neal Trousdale)
I think she’s not the only one who didn’t know that such thing like “golden set” existed ;)It’s absolutely unbelievable!
As for Serena, those aces saved her, ’cause Zheng put up quite a fight.
Zheng Jie was magnificent.