Tsvetana Pironkova Stuns Venus

It will not be an all Williams Wimbledon final this year as Venus crashed out of the tournament yesterday at the hands of Tsvetana Pironkova.

The unseeded Bulgarian pulled out the performance of her career to convincingly topple the former champion for the loss of just five games to make it to her first Grand Slam semi final.

Williams had been in dominant for in her first three matches and was the heavy favourite going into her quarter final clash with the world number eight two.

But the form that Williams had displayed in the first week deserted her and she got steadily worse as the match progressed while Pironkova stood firm and produced an excellent display to dispatch the second seed.

The first chance of the opening set fell to Williams in game five when she fashioned two break point chances to get her nose ahead. But surprisingly she didn't convert her chances as Pironkova saved both to level the match at 2-2.

The rest of the set belonged to the Bulgarian as she broke Williams in the next game before holding to open up a 4-2 lead. 4-2 became five two as she broke Williams for a second time.

But she needed four chances for the second break as Williams managed to save three break points but a forehand winner from Pironkova saw her break again before serving out the set.

Into the second and it looked like the Williams revival was on as she broke her opponent to open up a 2-0 lead. However the fightback didn't last long as Pironkova held her next service game before breaking Williams for the third time to get right back into the set.

The errors began to pile up for Williams as the serve was a continual struggle and two consecutive double faults handed Pironkova another break of serve.

At 5-2 down Williams saved two match points but it was too little to late for the American as Pironkova kept her cool to serve for the match.

And she held in style as Williams hit a return in the tramlines to hand Pironkova a convincing 6-2 6-3 win in just an hour and twenty three minutes.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the match Pironkova said: "It's like a dream, coming here I never thought I'd play that well and come this far in the tournament.

"I think I played pretty well today, I'm very happy with my game. I have one win over her and thought I could win and I was going for it."

Pironkova will now face Vera Zvonareva for a place in the final as the twenty first seed put out Kim Clijsters.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw