Williams’ path to Wimbledon victory is clear with all top-10 seeds out

Williams is into the quarterfinals, and she’s only lost to one of the women remaining at Wimbledon.

The women’s singles field at Wimbledon has been narrowed to just eight players, none of whom are seeded in the top-10. In fact, this is the first time that no top-10 seeds made it to the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam in the Open era.

Multiple upsets have led to No. 11 Angelique Kerber, No. 13 Julia Goerges, No. 14 Daria Kasatkina, No. 12 Jelena Ostapenko, No. 20 Kiki Bertens, unseeded Dominika Cibulkova and unseeded Camila Giorgi being the only remaining players.

Oh, and Serena Williams, winner of seven Wimbledon championships.

Williams is playing in her first Wimbledon since she won it in 2016, missing the tournament last year due to her pregnancy. She returned to Grand Slam play at the French Open this year, but still looked a little rusty. She’s looked anything but rusty at Wimbledon, and now has as close to an open path to victory as she’s had at a major in a very long time.

That isn’t to denigrate those that remain, but Williams only has two losses in 20 matches against her seven potential competitors. In fact, she’s only lost to Kerber, who beat her both times. Williams, though, holds a 6-2 edge over Kerber. You can see her head-to-head record vs. the remaining seven below:

3-0 vs. Giorgi
2-0 vs. Goerges
3-0 vs. Bertens
6-2 vs. Kerber
1-0 vs. Kasatkina
0-0 vs. Ostapenko
5-0 vs. Cibulkova

As you can see, the only person Williams hasn’t played is Ostapenko, who is playing well but at this point, everyone left is playing good tennis. That said, this seven is decidedly not as scary for Williams or any other player as the top seven seeds would be: Simona Halep, Caroline Wozniacki, Garbine Muguruza, Sloane Stephens, Elina Svitolina, Caroline Garcia and Karolina Pliskova.

Pliskova was the last of the top-10 seeds to fall, losing in straight sets to Bertens in the fourth round on Monday. Up next, Williams has Giorgi, then the winner of the match between Bertens and Goerges in the semifinals if she advances. Kerber could wind up waiting for her in the final, and that would be Williams’ biggest test since returning from the birth of her child and the medical issues that came with said birth.

Williams’ 23 Grand Slam singles titles is the record for most Slam wins by any player in the Open Era, and is just one behind Margaret Court on the all-time list.