So long the dominant force in women’s tennis, Serena Williams will head to Wimbledon this month in danger of losing her number one ranking to Spain’s Garbine Muguruza. Muguruza, beaten by Williams in last year’s Wimbledon final, turned the tables to win the French Open and climbed to a career-high second on the WTA list.
Should she win the Wimbledon title and the 34-year-old Williams loses before the final, she would rise to number one, a position Williams has held for 178 weeks. “Everybody’s dreaming about being number one,” 22-year-old Muguruza said after her straight sets defeat of Williams. “My focus is just on winning matches and tournaments. But of course I would be very happy to be number one.”
The last Spanish woman to reach the number one ranking was Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in 1995. Muguruza will prepare for Wimbledon at the inaugural Mallorca Open starting next week, the first grasscourt tournament ever held in Spain.

Kohlschreiber enters quarter-finals
German Philipp Kohlschreiber advanced to the quarter-finals at the MercedesCup in Stuttgart for the second consecutive year, overcoming Denis Kudla 7-5, 6-3 yesterday.  The seventh seed erased four of five break points but needed four match points to put away the 23-year-old American, who was trying to reach his first quarter-final since last year at the BB&T Atlanta Open.
“[I’m] very happy with the transition from clay to grass... Today [I had] a tough opponent. Denis Kudla played a fantastic grass-court season last year,” Kohlschreiber said of Kudla, who won an ATP Challenger Tour event and reached the fourth round of Wimbledon last year.
Kohlschreiber, No. 26 in the ATP Rankings, will face second seed Marin Cilic or Czech qualifier Radek Stepanek, who was two points away from knocking out Andy Murray in the first round of Roland Garros.
“It’s a very strong tournament,” Kohlschreiber said. “I’m happy I put myself in a great position, and I know if I play well in the quarters I can reach the semis or even more.”
German qualifier Florian Mayer beat Stuttgart’s Michael Berrer 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 before the rain fell, with top seed Roger Federer, making a return from injury was leading Taylor Fritz 4-3 in the first set. The match will be completed today.