Three racket rebels reach Wimbledon semis - Shvedova wins women's doubles

Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Tsvetana Pironkova rose to the occasion at Wimbledon, with each of the HEAD racket rebels reaching the semi-finals of the most prestigious event on the calendar.

Andy Murray carried the weight of British expectations on his YouTek Radical Pro, with the hosts hoping for a first men's title in 74 years. The Scot, January's Australian Open finalist, played a great tournament in front of home crowd all the way up to the semis where No.1 Rafael Nadal proved to be too powerful winning 6-4, 7-6, 6-4. "A few weeks ago no one would have given me much of a hope of getting to the semis because I wasn't playing well. But I played a good tournament," said Murray. "It's not like I played badly. But Rafael played great, and that was the difference. It’s a little bit more disappointing than other Grand Slams because this one is the biggest one of the year for me," said two-time semi-finalist Murray, now off on holiday.

Novak Djokovic, playing with a YouTek Speed MP, duplicated his 2007 semi as he faced Tomas Berdych, the Czech winning 6-3, 7-6, 6-3. But Novak stays positive after what has been a successful two weeks in London: "I have to move on. I hope next time, if I have this opportunity, I'll play better," said the Serb. "I was a little bit unfortunate on some points and I definitely didn't take my chances."


In the women's singles draw, Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova made her big-match breakthrough wielding a YouTek Instinct in superb style with a trip into the final four, where she battled for three sets before falling 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 to Russian Vera Zvonareva.

The 22-year-old HEAD player who needed help from her embassy to find a place to stay after booking only a few days in her London hotel, emerged thrilled with her first big accomplishment in the sport. "It was a huge experience for me. Reaching the semi-finals in Wimbledon, it's like a dream. Of course I wanted to go to the finals, but it didn't happen this year. But I learned you just have to play relaxed. You just have to go for every point, to fight, to never give up. I have lots of respect for this tournament. Now that I played so well here, it makes me incredibly happy.”

HEAD's Yaroslava Shvedova (YouTek Extreme MP) claimed the women's doubles trophy along with American partner Vania King as the pair beat Russians Vera Zvonareva and Elena Vesnina 7-6, 6-2. It was the first women’s doubles final between two unseeded teams in 35 years at Wimbledon. "We're shocked," was Shvedova's comment at the unexpected success from a team playing their third event together. "We just like the way how we played and we enjoyed the way how we played. We had fun, it's a game. The French Open singles quarter-finalist is the first Kazakh to win a Wimbledon title of any kind. She was playing for the first time ever on Centre Court.

In the Junior competition unseeded Benjamin Mitchell from Australia reached the final where he lost to Marton Fucsovics 6-4, 6-4. Among others, Mitchell succeeded against No. 3 seeded Tiago Fernandes and No. 6 seeded Damir Dzumhur.