“I won my second Grand Slam of the year and it’s the best year of my career”.
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“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”, Kerber said.
Australian Open champion Kerber, who lost to Williams in the final at Wimbledon in July, missed out on climbing to the top of the rankings when she lost to the powerful Pliskova at the Cincinnati Masters three weeks ago.
Meanwhile Kerber celebrated her elevation to the top with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Caroline Wozniacki to set up her final date with Pliskova. “You saw even when she was down a break she’s still fighting so it’s very hard”. Was just about a few points.
In the muggy air at Flushing Meadows, the average speed of her first serve, 102 miles-per-hour (164 kph), was her slowest of the tournament.
“I found out I can play my best tennis on the biggest stages against the top players”, Pliskova said. “I knew it was going to be hard”.
Pliskova, nevertheless, kept going for her shots and regularly threatened Kerber’s serve in the second set. Pliskova would win only one more game. Kerber had won the Australian Open earlier this year after beating Serena Williams, who she recently displaced as world No. 1, in the final. But No. 1 Serena Williams was upset Thursday night by Karolina Pliskova, the rising Czech Republic player with a scintillating serve.
Karolina Pliskova (L) came mighty close to winning her maiden Grand Slam title on Saturday.
“It’s just awesome. I won my second Grand Slam in one year”, Kerber said during her on-court interview. “I’m not 18 so I’m always trying to improve my game”.
“Right now I don’t know if she has messaged me because my phone is somewhere, so I don’t know how many messages I have now”. Venus Williams. And there is also the Rio effect: Kerber is the only one of four players who advanced to a gold-medal match to still be alive. Eventually, Kerber would watch plenty of Graf’s matches.
“It all started for me here in NY five years ago when I reached the semi-finals and now I am here with the trophy”, she added. The defeat means she will lose her No. 1 WTA ranking for the first time since February 2013. However, she’s now on an 11-match winning streak, according to the AP, and as she puts it, she only has “one more step to go”.
“But she was always my idol and I told her that so many times”.
The two-time grand-slam champion said she was confident of dealing with expectations. Kerber got broken early in the third and bounced her racket off the court. The Danish player posed no threat to Kerber, who sailed through with a 6-4, 6-3 win. In fact, she made 13 of 14 shots at the net in the second set. I knew I had the chance to beat anyone if I played my game.
Kerber, who looked a shadow of herself in the second set, bounced back in fashion and overcame a break to win the deciding set.
An emotional Kerber said on court: “It’s just incredible”. So I would not change it.
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Prior to this fortnight, the 24-year-old had never been beyond the fourth round at a major despite being an established player the previous two seasons. “I think I had a pretty positive attitude mostly, outside of maybe my second round”.
