“I knew I could play better and I kind of feel like I lost my rhythm in the second set”, said Williams, who will next face 10th seeded Czech Karolina Pliskova, a 6-2, 6-2 victor over Croatian teenager Ana Konjuh, for a place in Saturday’s final.
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Wozniacki reached her fifth U.S. Open semifinal, and first at any Grand Slam tournament in two years, by beating an injured Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia 6-0, 6-2 on Tuesday night. “I tried to stay positive and I knew if I did that I could just stay in the match”, Williams said about her missed chances.
“Her serve is just too good”. I definitely never thought I would be playing still. Find us on Facebook too! Pliskova got the better part of the last stretch and had match point at 6-3. “She’s a big hitter and she can have 50 winners and you cannot do much about it”.
Thus far in NY there has been little sign that anyone will be able to stop her. Unsurprisingly, Williams gave no indication that she was paying any particular attention to the threat posed by the 24-year-old.
She’s gone on to win in Stuttgart, reach the Wimbledon final (falling to Williams) and earn a silver medal at the Olympics. Neither has Pliskova, who hadn’t even been past the third round at major until now. At 34, when most tennis professionals retire, she is still winning. Halep, however, has been playing some of her best tennis this summer with a win at the Rogers Cup and a semifinal showing at the Western & Southern Open, and saved a stunning 12 break points in the second set to level the match on her fifth set point.
But take heart. Serena’s shoulder isn’t the greatest, which may be the reason why she had a bad second set. Roberta Vinci handed Serena her first Grand Slam singles loss of the season in the semifinals. At current competitions Serena, as always, shows a strong game and only in the quarter was faced with strong resistance from the Simona Halep, defeating Romanian in three games 6: 2,4: 6,6: 3. She exceeded to beat Simona Halep, barely reaching the semifinals.
That would move her past Steffi Graf and leave her one shy of Margaret Court at the top of the all-time list.
The future of the Women’s game got a shining star, when Ana Konjuh defeated fourth seeded Agnieszka Radwanka 6/4; 6/4, in a match where she delivered 38 winners from both left and right. A win at this year’s U.S. Open would be Williams’ seventh, which would break a tie with Chris Evert for the most ever.
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At that point there was no way back for the 92nd-ranked Konjuh as Pliskova steamrolled through four straight games finishing her opponent off with back-to-back aces.
