Bellis, who is maintaining her amateur status with the hope of getting into Stanford following her upcoming senior year of high school, will play in the feature match against Williams at 7 p.m. Friday night.
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Bellis, playing in her first WTA quarter-final was buoyed by an early service break.
“That’s pretty weird”, Bellis said, chuckling.
“I think I was more exhausted in the first set than I was actually in the third set”, Bellis said. But I don’t think I’ll be as nervous as I was playing against Serena in Miami. Hopefully, I’ll get a couple more games. I thought he was going to close in really hard. Williams was much consistent throughout the match, unlike in her opener against Magda Linette, dropping only five games in her one hour encounter to set up a semi-final clash against fellow American Alison Riske. “In the first set we were having really long rallies and I think I was playing more into her game”. Bellis advanced to the quarterfinals after posting a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 win over countrywoman Sachia Vickery yesterday. “To play against both them, when you really think about it, that’s so cool at my age”.
“It was so quick I don’t remember that much”, Bellis said. The third seeded Briton defeated Saisai Zheng in three sets, while the newly-married Slovakian wrapped up her match against the fifth seeded Misaki Doi in straight sets that included a second set bagel. Obviously, it’ll be such an honor playing one of the best players of all time, and she’s done so much in her career and still doing fantastic things.
She only hit on 42 percent of first serves in the second set, but Bellis’ ability to nail backhands down the line at crucial moments shifted momentum in her favor.
Riske led fourth-seeded CoCo Vandeweghe 6-3 1-0 in another all-American match before her opponent retired because of an ankle injury.
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There have been 12 three-set singles matches in the first two rounds, the most in the Bank of the West in more than 35 years.
