Nevertheless, Williams will bid for her second straight Cincinnati title on Sunday, facing the either third-seeded Simona Halep of Romania or former champion Jelena Jankovic of Serbia. Federer never faced a break point during a 7-6 (1), 6-3 victory at the Western and Southern Open. It wasn’t the first time that Djokovic has fallen behind to him: Dolgopolov got up 7-6, 4-1 at Miami earlier this season before losing in three sets.
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Serena Williams continued to work her way up the list of WTA tennis legends, winning her 69th career title with a straight-set win over Simona Halep at the WTA Cincinnati tournament.
Ivanovic’s best result at the US Open came back in 2012, where she was knocked out at the quarter-final stage by Williams.
Bencic closed out the contest on her first match point by hitting a forehand victor to the open court.
She will play the victor of 14 seed Elina Svitolina and sixth-seed Lucie Safarova.
Djokovic is on a mission to finally win Cincinnati and become the first player in history to complete a matched set of all nine Masters 1000 trophies. And sure enough, Federer fell to No. 3 after Andy Murray’s victory in Montreal, and when Murray made the semifinals at Cincinnati, the only way for Federer to get the No. 2 ranking back was to win the tournament.
“It was the best performance I had so far this week”, said Djokovic, who is 18-4 career against Wawrinka. “The surface and conditions here play in his favor very much so”, Djokovic said. “It came at the right time against one of my biggest rivals and the guy I lost to last time we played in the finals of French Open“, said Djokovic.
Though she’s looking more and more like a player who is ready to win her first major, she deferred to Williams on court after the final, telling her rival “I know that you can do all four, so all the best and be strong”. “I’m feeling quite optimistic about the US Open“.
No such luck for Rafa Nadal, however, as he took the first set from Lopez, but dropped the second, then couldn’t ward off his inspired compatriot in a third set tiebreaker.
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Roger Federer eased his way into a semifinal match against Lopez scheduled for Friday night by beating the towering South African, Kevin Anderson without a bead of sweat. Despite Halep doing well to stay close in points and retain her aggressiveness, Williams was able to control points at every moment with precision and power. She will now have the opportunity to win a $1,000,000 bonus prize with the title Flushing Meadow. When Serena was asked whether anyone could beat her when she’s playing well, she said what so many of her competitors have conceded: It’s on her racquet.
