Doubles Take: Rosolska, Spears shock top seeds

The Wimbledon women's semifinals are set after a big upset at the top of the draw. Plus a look ahead in the daily Doubles Take.

In the battle of Nottingham champs versus Eastbourne winners, it was the unseeded duo who came out on top in the women’s doubles quarterfinals.

Abigail Spears and Alicja Rosolska shocked the top seeds Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic in a contest between two of the tour’s best on grass this year. It’s their first major semifinal together, while Mladenovic and Babos fell in the quarters to an unseeded foe for the second Grand Slam in a row.

The run of Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova also came to an end as they lost to Gabriela Dabrowski and Yifan Xu. Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova, and Kveta Peschke and Nicole Melichar also won to move on.

Here’s a look at three of the matches on tap for Thursday.

1

Mike Bryan/Jack Sock (7) vs. Dominic Inglot/Franko Skugor (15)

A day after England dropped a heartbreaker against Croatia in the World Cup semifinals, representatives of the two countries will take the court at Wimbledon together with a finals berth on the line.

Inglot and Skugor won a grass-court title just a few weeks ago, and that good form has continued into Wimbledon. Sock and Bryan’s Grand Slam-winning experience will be the difference maker in this one.

2

Jay Clarke/Harriet Dart vs. Juan Sebastian Cabal/Abigail Spears (10)

It’s not every day that you see a mixed doubles quarterfinal match on Centre Court, but here we are. In an interesting bit of scheduling, Clarke and Dart, the young Brits who shocked top seeds Gabriela Dabrowski and Mate Pavic a round ago, are third up on the main stage after the women’s semis. Cabal and Spears, who won the Australian Open just last year, obviously have much more experience, but Clarke and Dart have been playing with nerves of steel all tournament.

3

Raven Klaasen/Michael Venus (13) vs. Frederik Nielsen/Joe Salisbury:

Nielsen is on the verge of something once thought unimaginable: Two Wimbledon miracles. The 2012 wild-card champ is close to a second career men’s doubles title as an unseeded player. Venus and Klaasen, meanwhile, are on their best Slam run of the season and on paper, would be considered the stronger team in this match-up. Picking against Nielsen at this stage might not be the best move, because evidently, he knows what it takes to pull off the impossible at the All England Club.

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