2016 WIMBLEDON: Venus, Serena Get Through Tough 3-Set Matches

Venus Williams and Serena Williams each prevailed in their tension-filled, three-set matches at a rain-soaked Wimbledon on Friday.

Venus outlasted Daria Kasatkina of Russia, 7-5 4-6 10-8 despite having a match point at 6-5 30-40 when the rains came down and play was suspended as the American looked on with disbelief. When the two players came back on the court, Venus failed to break serve and win the match and play continued for another 30 minutes.  Eventually she prevailed in the 16th game of the third set instead of the 12th.

Serena's match was even more dramatic. After dropping her very first service game of the match to fellow American Christina McHale, Serena went down 1-3 and had to claw it back to a tiebreak, which she eventually lost, 9-7, despite holding set points. She bounced back well in the second set, taking it 6-2 but then went down 0-2 again in the deciding set. The 6-time Wimbledon champion did not panic, but calmly broke back and leveled the match and earned multiple break opportunities. Eventually, she broke her opponent in the 9th game and calmly served out the match with three consecutive aces!

In other news, there were two early round upsets with World #4 Stan Wawrinka losing in four sets to Juan Martin del Potro today and World #2 (and reigning French Open champion) Garbine Muguruza losing in straights sets to Jana Cepelova yesterday.

There's another potential upset brewing with Sam Querrey leading defending champion Novak Djokovic 7-6(6) 6-1 when rain suspended play for the day.

For the first time since 2004, Wimbledon will schedule play on the middle Sunday of the two-week event.