2.37pm: Pironkova spies an opening. She pulls Zvonereva way out of court and prepares to lash a forehand into an acreage of space. The forehand clips the tape and falls back on her side of the net. The Russian leads 3-1, final set.
2.32pm: Hey ho, it all begun so well for Tsvetana Pironkova. For the first set and a half, the Bulgarian was sharp and intense; a lean, mean killing machine. Now she is spraying her shots and hanging on to survive. She falls 15-40 behind before rediscovering some of her old fire and coming through. But she is still down a break, 1-2 in the final set.
2.26pm: Tsvetana Pironkova is still out in the sun. But mentally and physically she seems to be fading. Zvonereva is pressing further up the court, taking the ball earlier and earlier and bustling the Bulgarian out of the point. The Russian breaks to go ahead and the holds for 2-0. She has now won six of the last seven games.
2.20pm: Second set to Zvonereva, six games to three. The Russian has steadied herself, gone back to what she knows. She is playing more consistently than Pironkova and is keeping the unforced errors to a minimum. A lucky net cord ushers her through and we're into the decider. The momentum, for the time being, is all Zvonereva's way.
2.14pm: Pironkova is now blowing hot on cold on Centre Court. But when she's hot, she's positively molten; walloping her hardest return up the line and catching Zvonereva on her heels. On the next point, the players scramble at the net, wrestling for supremacy. The Russian comes good and forges 5-2 ahead.
2.10pm: Zvonereva breaks, moving Pironkova from side to side before she sees an opening, working a backhand down the line for a clean winner. The Russian leads 4-2 and this first semi-final looks all set to go the distance.
2.05pm: News from Court 12, where a new British hero has just been born. The labour was painful and protracted, but the baby is now with us. Little Oliver Golding is through to the semi-finals of the junior singles, recovering from a set and a break down to up-end Argentina's Renzo Olivo 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. It's the second fine win in as many days for Golding, who beat the top seed Jason Kubler 7-5, final set, in the previous round. At this rate, he will be lifting the main trophy here in, ooh, shall we say 2012? Or is that overly optimistic?
1.57pm: Zvonereva strikes back, clubbing a weighty down-the-line forehand on her way to a 0-30 lead. But Pironkova is not about to fold; at least not yet. She slaps a brilliant backhand from the centre of the court, breaking it out wide to the Russian's right with a deadly brush of side-spin. Two-all. Long game.
1.50pm: They're on serve at the start of the second, one game all. My colleague Simon Cambers wanders by, during a break from writing a preview of tomorrow's blockbusting semi-final between Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal (oh, that this could be the final). Word from the wise: Cambers thinks that Murray will win it.
1.42pm: Game, and first set to the Bulgarian. Zvonereva scurries to the net and executes a perfect half-volley off of the turf. But on her third set point, Pironkova bullies the Russian with deep, testing backhands and coaxes the error. Pironkova wins 6-3.
1.33pm: To misquote Madonna on KD Lang, "Ivan Lendl is back and by God, she's beautiful". Pironkova, like Lendl, is tall and intense and Slavic. She strikes her serve from an upright, straight-backed stance and hits screaming, raking forehands that have her opponents groping at thin air. The Bulgarian rushes to love-40 on Zvonereva's serve and goes on to take the game. She now leads 5-2 in the first.
1.25pm: Pironkova is having the best of the early exchanges on Centre Court. She possesses a flat, penetrating serve and raking ground-strokes that she strikes to the corners, with barely any spin and a narrow margin of error. Thus far, she is staying cool and hitting freely. The Bulgarian eases ahead, 3-2 on serve on the opening set.
1.15pm: This is lowly Tsvetana Pironkova's first time on Centre Court, but you'd never know it to look at her. She holds to 15, ripping Zvonereva with a cross-court backhand and then finishing up with a 112mph ace down the middle.
Now Zvonereva steps up to serve. On the second point, the ball comes back at her, hits the court and pops, literally exploding; the air gone out of it. This seems to unnerve the Russian, but she keeps it together and goes on to take the game. Better the ball than a ball-boy, I guess. When one of those explodes, you really know about it. Blood, gore and bone matter from one end of the court to the other.
1.10pm: To the court at the centre now, where Vera Zvonereva is knocking up against Tsvetana Pironkova, the first Bulgarian to ever reach the semi-final here. The consensus is that Zvonereva will win this one; that the occasion will conspire to smother Pironkova, who surely never dreamed she would come this far. A few days ago, her hotel booking ran out and the Bulgarian embassy was forced to step in to find emergency accommodation. This they duly managed to do. Note to London's hoteliers: you don't say no when the Bulgarian embassy comes a-calling.
12.45pm: So herewith the schedule. Zvonereva versus Pironkova is first up on Centre Court at 1pm, followed by Serena Williams and Petra Kvitova. Elsewhere, there are the usual roll-call of juniors and "legends", the might-bes and the once-weres. Goran Ivanisevic (champion in 2001) is playing doubles with Cedric Pioline (finalist in 1997) over on Court Two. Later, Richard Krajicek (winner in '96) will team up with Michael Stich (1991 champion). I may wander over and catch a bit of that one, briefly turning back the clock to a time when serve-and-volley was the only way to win a Wimbledon trophy.
Krajicek is not just here to play "legends' doubles", it seems. He was out on the terrace yesterday, resplendent in a sober suit, his hair slicked back, playing learned pundit for Dutch TV as the crowds drifted, unfussed, below him. Two hours later, Boris Becker stood before the camera in the exact same place and it was like Beatlemania had come to Wimbledon. The spectators stood six-deep in the walkway, craning their necks and snapping his picture. A quarter-century since he won the title at 17, 11 years since he left the tournament to crawl into a broom cupboard, the German remains a bona-fide star on the grounds. If they can't watch him dive about on Centre Court, the spectators are more than happy to watch him chatter for the cameras.
Walking down the steps, I pass the BBC's Sue Barker, deep in conversation with a friend. "We had Djokovic in yesterday," she says. "He was LOVELY."
"Really?" says the friend in apparent disbelief.
Why the surprise? Is Novak Djokovic not normally lovely? Does he, maybe, sometimes rock up drunk, in a vicious, violent temper? Last time he was in, he sent a chair through the window and threw up on the floor. This time, thank heavens, he was lovely. Forgive and forget, thinks Sue with a shudder. Forgive and forget.
12.25pm: Day 10 of the Wimbledon championships, and just who is left to compete the women's semi-finals? Henin has gone and Clijsters departed, Venus has sunk and Sharapova been killed off (figuratively, not literally) and today it is left to the game's lesser lights - the ovas and evas - to disrupt the scheduled coronation of Serena Williams. The reigning champion has yet to concede a set in this year's tournament and has been tested only once - by Maria Sharapova in round four.
But wait: is today the day she meets her Waterloo? Facing Williams in the semi-final is Petra Kvitova, the world number 62. In her last match, Kvitova recovered from match points down to outlast qualifier Kaia Kanepi. In her one previous contest with Williams, she went down 2-6, 1-6. So no. This is probably not the day that Williams meets her Waterloo - although stranger things have happened.
The day's other semi is tougher to call. Seede at 21, Vera Zvonereva appears to have come of age this Wimbledon, sealing the deal with a battling, three-set fightback against Kim Clijsters in the previous round. But she is up against the discovery of this year's championship. Tsvetana Pironkova is the composed, angular assassin who put paid to a below-par Venus Williams 6-2, 6-3 in the quarter-finals.
It remains to be seen whether Pironkova will react to this win and if the pressure will tell. Still, she beat Zvonereva in their one previous encounter and could well do so again. And in a way, that would be fitting. If this title is to fall to a Non-Williams, it should by rights be the person who beats both sisters at the same event.
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