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Collin Matiza Sports Editor
TOP Zimbabwean women’s tennis player Cara Black and her American partner Lisa Raymond caused one of the major upsets of the day at Wimbledon yesterday when they ousted Spaniards Garbine Muguruza and Carla Suarez Navarro from the women’s doubles competition.

According to reports from London, Black and Raymond, who are unseeded at the All England Club, brewed a shocker when they beat the sixth-seeded pair of Muguruza and Suarez Navarro in straight sets 6-3, 6-1 in the second round of the third Grand Slam of the year.

The match lasted 1 hour 5 minutes.

To reach yesterday’s second round of the women’s doubles competition at Wimbledon, Black and Raymond laboured to beat Sweden’s Johanna Larsson and Petra Martic of Croatia 5-7, 6-3, 7-5 in a first-round encounter which lasted 2 hours 10 minutes on Wednesday.

Larsson and Martic were also unseeded.

And after taking long to dispatch Larsson and Martic in the opening round on Wednesday, Black and Raymond were in a hurry yesterday as they took just over an hour to send Muguruza and Suarez Navarro packing in their second round tie.

Yesterday’s victory kept Black, who has won a total of 10 Grand Slam titles in women’s doubles and mixed doubles combined, on course for her fourth Wimbledon women’s doubles titles after having triumphed at the All England Club in 2004, 2005 and 2007.

Now a mother of one son and married to her former Australian fitness trainer Brett Stephens, Black (36) lifted her first Wimbledon women’s doubles title in 2004 with her former Aussie partner Rennae Stubbs when they defeated Ai Sugiyama of Japan and American Liezel Huber 6-3, 7-6 (7-5) in the final.

In 2005, Black and Huber returned to Wimbledon where they once again fought all the way to women’s doubles final and successfully defended their title by beating France’s Amélie Mauresmo and Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia 6–2, 6–1.

Two years later, Black and Huber won their third Wimbledon women’s doubles title by beating Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia and Sugiyama in the final, 3–6, 6–3, 6–2.

Apart from playing in the women’s doubles at Wimbledon this year, Black is also playing in the mixed doubles where she is partnering Juan Sebastian Cabal of Colombia.

Black and Cabal are seeded ninth and they received a first round bye in the mixed doubles. In the second round, they will play either the Australian pair of Lleyton Hewitt and Casey Dellacqua or the duo of Abigail Spears of the United States and Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico.

Black is gunning for her third mixed doubles title at Wimbledon this year.

She won her first Wimbledon mixed doubles title with her brother Wayne in 2004 when they beat Australian Tood Woodbridge and Alicia Molik 3-6, 7-6, 6-4 in the final.

In 2010, Cara partnered Indian tennis legend Leander Paes in the mixed doubles at Wimbledon and the pair reached the final where they beat Wesley Moodie of South Africa and America’s Raymond 6-4, 7-5 (5) to walk away with the title.