Pliskova, a 24-year-old from the Czech Republic, won the match 6-2, 7-6 (5), and advanced to the women’s final.
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Powerful Czech star Karolina Pliskova has shocked the tennis world by beating US Open favorite Serena Williams at the semifinal stage on Thursday night.
She’ll thus have to wait to become the first player in the Open Era to win 23 majors – Williams is now tied with Steffi Graf on 22.
Williams said she had been hampered by a sore left knee since earlier in the tournament.
Pliskova, 24, played a flawless first set, helped by her booming first serve.
The 10th-seeded Czech moves into the final at Flushing Meadows to meet Germany’s Angelique Kerber, who will replace Williams as the world’s top-ranker player on Monday no matter what the result.
In an interview after her stunning win on Thursday, Pliskova said by playing Venus earlier in the tournament in front of a crowd of nearly 23,000 fans, backing the American, had helped her prepare for her semi-final clash against Serena and the fans that supported her at the Arthur Ashe Stadium.
The upstart Pliskova should give Kerber a tough match thanks to her serving, but the German should leave NY with her second Grand Slam of 2016, along with her new No. 1 ranking.
She also said that, “To beat Serena is my goal and I am not thinking about the final match”.
“I wasn’t able to move the way I wanted to move”, Williams explained.
Asked about the prospect of facing Kerber, she said: “We played a lot of times”. She will be favored in Saturday’s final against Pliskova, but the two have something of a recent history.
Serena Williams shockingly crashed out of the U.S. Open on Thursday, and her coach is blaming a health issue for the defeat.
For Kerber it is her chance to claim her second grand slam women’s singles title of the year after also being victorious at the Australian Open. “To be No 1 in the world, it sounds fantastic”. “I think I had a pretty positive attitude mostly, outside of maybe my second round”.
Despite the loss, Serena had nothing but nice things to say about her competitor and handled the defeat with grace.
Serena later disclosed that she had been playing with a serious knee injury that curtailed her movement on court.
The top-seed also hailed her opponent Pliskova, saying that the 10th seed had done extremely well last year by coming close to the finals of so many tournaments while adding that this was surely her year to perform really well. So I definitely wasn’t exhausted from yesterday’s match at all.
With the two biggest hitters in women’s tennis standing across from each other the match was expected to be an explosive affair filled with booming serves.
Kerber, who beat Williams in Melbourne before losing to her in the final at Wimbledon, said: “I was watching the match a little bit before I came here but I was trying to focus on this match, not the match before”.
He said she spent far less time than usual warming up for the match, after getting treatment much of the day.
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Pliskova broke in the third game as good depth led to Williams sending a backhand long. “At this point in her career, she can not be happy just being in the final”.
