Wimbledon Update: 16 women left!

Monday is the 4th Round at Wimbledon. There are 16 women left in the tournament, with a large number of surprising survivors (Myskina, Dementieva, Pierce and Venus) and few early exits (Henin-Hardenne).

My previous prediction of a Serena-Sharapova semifinal at this year's Wimbledon can no longer come true: Serena Williams lost 6-3, 7-6(4) on Saturday to a fellow American, 30-year old, 85th world-ranked Jill Craybas.

But this upset gives her sister Venus Williams an excellent chance to get a quarterfinal match with the resurgent Mary Pierce, who last month made it to the French Open final. If Venus gets past that match, she will have a semifinal encounter with the "Golden Girl" Maria Sharapova who just has to get past Nathalie Dechy and Nadia Petrova.

In the other half of the draw Lindsay Davenport and Kim Clijsters are duking it out in what should be the best match of the tournament for a quarterfinal opportunity against Svetlana Kuznetsova. I remain firm in my prediction that Clijsters will come through both of those matches, albeit in 3 sets. Clijsters will then meet Mauresmo (who theoretically should have no problem defeating either Dementieva or Myskina on grass) in the other semi-final.

If Clijsters does not make it through her half of the draw, I think Sharapova will most likely repeat as Wimbledon champion. Clijsters has a 3-0 record against her, and has beaten Sharapova already this year in a final (to win the NASDAQ-100 in Miami).

UPDATE 9pm 06/26/05 It should be noted that if Davenport beats Clijsters then she has a very good chance of making it to her second Grand Slam final of 2005, and she should have a mental edge against the defending champion, who she almost beat last year in the semis, and who she whipped 6-0, 6-0 at the Pacific Life tournament in March