Serena Williams hammers a forehand in her win over Johanna Larsson at the US Open in NY.
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Serena won her first Grand Slam title at Flushing Meadows in 1999.
Not sure? There’s plenty of evidence.
Williams reached 121 miles per hour on a serve. She compiled a 38-4 edge in winners.
To that end, Larsson covered an average of 5.2 feet per point, while Serena was at 4.2 feet as she dictated the action throughout. “Today, my opponent tried to play aggressively, but I played that game just a little bit better than her”.
Music power couple of BeyoncE and Jay Z sat behind Williams’ coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, in the player’s guest box Thursday. “It’s not ideal, of course, But for someone who didn’t play much matches in the last two months, I think she’s competitive”.
“There is no pain”.
“I feel okay”, Williams said.
“I feel OK”, she said when asked to grade her performance in week one.
“When I was more patient and waited for the right balls to go for I played much, much better and dictated more of the points”. Hitting 24 winners to just 17 unforced errors, Serena struck another six aces and dropped only five points behind her first serve to advance in just under an hour on Saturday.
“I was trying to push her back”.
Siegemund appeared poised to offer the American a good test, coming off a productive stretch in which she made the semi-finals in Bucharest, won in Bastad and reached the quarter-finals at the Rio Olympics. “I was waiting a long time for this girl to get to the fourth round”.
Now safely into the round of 16, Williams will be a heavy favorite when she faces world No. 52 Yaroslava Shvedova, who beat Zhang Shuai, 6-2, 7-5, on Saturday. No. 11 Carla Suarez Navarro, and No. 4 Agnieszka Radwanska vs. Ana Konjuh.
Serena Williams became the most winningest woman in Open Era history with victory number 307 after defeating Johanna Larsson at the US Open.
Murray needed more than three hours to complete a 7-6 (4), 5-7, 6-2, 6-3 victory over 40th-ranked Italian Paolo Lorenzi, who was on court almost five hours in his previous match, a five-set win over Gilles Simon.
Williams was dominant in her first- and second-round matches at the U.S. Open, and Saturday was more of the same.
Karolina Pliskova, the Czech 10th seed, beat 17th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russian Federation 6-2, 6-4, 11th seed Carla Suarez Navarro moved through with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Russia’s Elena Vesnina (19) and Croatia’s Ana Konjuh won a battle of the unseeded players, beating American Varvara Lepchenko 6-3, 3-6, 6-2.
Laura has looked confident in this tournament, and after dropping her first set in her first match of the tournament, she’s yet to lose another.
Australian Nick Kyrgios closes the show on Ashe against Illya Marchenko a Ukrainian ranked 47 spots below him who wasn’t shy about his goal of upstaging the 14th-seeded firebrand.
Andy Murray admits he had to win ugly to reach the US Open last 16 after the British number one battled past Italy’s Paolo Lorenzi. He meets sixth-seeded Kei Nishikori.
Murray now faces Bulgarian 22nd seed Grigor Dimitrov, who also needed four sets to knock out Joao Sousa of Portugal 6-4 6-1 3-6 6-2. The 2009 champion in NY missed 2 1/2 years’ worth of major tournaments because of three operations on his left wrist, and he’s ranked only 142nd, which is why he needed a wild-card invitation to get into the field.
“That’s pretty awesome and what a place to do it, where everything first started”, Williams told reporters.
“It’s definitely one match at a time”, she said. “But even if I’m not feeling great, I still manage to get a good fight in out there”.
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The top seed also hit a personal milestone with the victory in NY, registering a 307th career win to climb above Martina Navratilova’s tally for the most in the open era.
