This year, Kerber, no spring chicken at 28, beat Williams in the Australian Open final.
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“You have to believe in your dreams”.
“I mean, definitely, I would say now that she deserves to be No. 1”.
New world number one Angelique Kerber won her second grand slam tournament of the year by beating Czech player Karolina Pliskova in the final of the US Open. The victory made her the first German woman to top the WTA rankings since Steffi Graf and the first lefty since Monica Seles. Kerber was successful in converting her two break point attempts while managing to save one of Pliskova’s two break point opportunities.
Angelique Kerber (GER) poses with the trophy after her match against Karolina Pliskova (CZE) on day thirteen of the 2016 US Open tennis tournament at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. She won the deciding set 6-4, in a match that lasted over two hours. The Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd roared and Kerber celebrated by raising her right hand and wagging her index finger in the air as she took the opening set.
Kerber is the oldest player to become world number one for the first time but the likes of Williams, her sister Venus, Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka are proving players can now challenge for major titles well into their thirties. She was one break up very soon in the third set.
Kerber spent two weeks at Flushing Meadows listening to – and trying to block out – questions about another opportunity to overtake Williams for the top spot.
Kerber begins reign as number one with U.S. Open win was posted in Sports of TheNews International – https://www.thenews.com.pk on September 12, 2016 and was last updated on September 12, 2016.
When Pliskovas final forehand sailed out, Kerber was launched on a joyous celebration, climbing into box where coach Torben Beltz was sitting then returning to the court where the tears flowed.
“You have the pressure that she’s gonna ace you four times in a game, but you still have to be aggressive and hit winners, otherwise I can not be the one who is running with her”, said Pliskova. And the big-serving 6-foot-1 Pliskova, 24, took her out in the US Open semis. But Pliskova made up for it in the final game, acing and eventually winning the set on an unforced error.
This win caps off Kerber’s incredible year, which started off strong and has only gotten stronger.
For that one game, Pliskova suddenly seemed to realize where she was – four rounds past anything she had ever experienced in a major.
Pliskova beat Kerber in the final at Cincinnati almost three weeks ago for a breakthrough title for the 24-year-old Czech, and she’s been riding that momentum ever since. If she didn’t fail, she wouldn’t be where she is today or become the greatest player in the world without the incident in 2001.
Kerber, who defeated Czech Karolina Pliskova 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 to add the NY crown to the one she claimed in January in Melbourne, now plans a two-week tennis break.
Wawrinka, the 31-year-old third seed, triumphed 6-7 (1-7), 6-4, 7-5, 6-3 after nearly four hours of high-intensity tennis at Flushing Meadows.
He broke for 2-0 having won the first point of the game with two extreme, against-the-odds retrievals.
It would’ve been hard to predict a year ago that Kerber would ascend to the levels that she has.
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Mattek-Sands is the first American to win women’s doubles at Flushing Meadows since 2011, when Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond did it. “I’m starting to move out of the shadows”.
