Venus will retire on her own terms
— -- LONDON -- Venus Williams won her second-round match decisively Wednesday after winning six consecutive points in a first-set tiebreaker 7-6 (4), 6-1 over Japan's Kurumi Nara.
Williams will next play 2011 Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, marking only the second time in the last 10 Grand Slams in which Williams has reached the third round. Perhaps that's why the 34-year-old has been asked so much about retirement lately. Whatever the reason, the five-time Wimbledon champ wants no part of it.
"No, I definitely don't think that way," Williams said when asked if she ever walks on the court here thinking it might be her last singles match at Wimbledon. "That pretty much sums it up."
Still the questions persist, and understandably, given her ongoing battle with Sjogren's syndrome, an autoimmune disease. So what keeps her going?
"Well, I don't like watching [tennis] on TV," said Williams, who lost in the first round in 2012, her last Wimbledon. "I want to be out there. I'm not about the easy thing. Life is a challenge. For me, when I leave tennis, I want it to be on my own terms. I want to know that I rose to every challenge.
"I want to look back with no regrets."
Overtime -- again -- for Querrey an Tsonga
If there was a match that seemed destined for five sets, it was the second-round confrontation between No. 14 seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and American Sam Querrey.
Sure enough, the two players who were forced to finish suspended matches the day before, went the distance Wednesday. It was so good that when the chair umpire announced the match was suspended because of the gathering darkness at a quarter past nine the rabid crowd around Court 2 booed -- and the two players objected strenuously.
And so they actually continued for two more games.
But with the score tied at 9-all in the fifth set at 9:23 local time, there was no room for maneuvering. And so, for the second time in two matches, both men will be forced to return the next day -- in this case, Thursday -- to complete a suspended match.
Querrey will serve with the match level at 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-6 (4), 3-6, 9-9.
Tsonga, for the record, saved a match point trying to get to 6-all in the fifth.
This was a titanic thriller with some searing serving. Tsonga, the 29-year-old Frenchman and a two-time semifinalist here, leads the ace count 34-30. As heavy as they hit the ball, it's been a clean match, too. Tsonga has already stroked an amazing 90 winners, against only 31 unforced errors. Querrey's numbers are about the same: 83 and 23.
Incredibly, in 63 service games there have been only two breaks of serve.
Querrey, the 26-year-old who reached the fourth round here four years ago, is trying to advance to the third -- where he could be joined by fellow Americans No. 9-seeded John Isner, Jack Sock and Denis Kudla on Thursday.
-- Melissa Isaacson contributed to this story
Related Stories
ABC News Live