After beating Karolina Pliskova yesterday, 6-3 4-6 6-4, Kerber finished off a great Grand Slam season that saw her win Australia and NY and be the runner up in Wimbledon.
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Kerber went on to beat Karolina Pliskova in Saturday’s final for her second Grand Slam title of the season.
“I knew that I have the game to beat the best players if I was just patient and worked really hard”, said Kerber, who becomes only the second woman from Germany to win a US Open title in the tournament’s 136-year history after the five-times victor Steffi Graf.
When her final forehand sailed out, Kerber was launched on a joyous celebration, climbing into the stands to greet her coach.
She went on to stun Serena Williams in the final, though that achievement wasn’t easy to handle at first.
“Amazing to win a second Grand Slam in one year”, Kerber said. “Angie proved she is the number one, it was an honour to play her”. “I don’t know if I was prepared for this, but I think I played an awesome year”. “I’m standing here with a second Grand Slam trophy and it means so much to me”. I give her a world of credit for her entire year.
Kerber has kept in close touch with Graf and says she received a text from her before her latest success.
In the end, her 47 unforced errors – a outcome of her big-hitting approach – compared to Kerber’s meagre 17 proved her undoing.
“It still sounds a little bit insane”, Kerber said a few hours later, the U.S. Open trophy by her side.
Because I think this Grand Slam was the most painful, physically and mentally, that I ever played. Or even at the beginning of the 2016 Australian Open, when she faced match point in the first round and nearly flamed out. Yeah, working hard. Just have a great team around you and really love what you are doing.
“For me everything started here in 2011”, she added, referring to when she made the semi-finals ranked No.92.
Kerber’s loss of the second set was the first time the entire championship that she had dropped a set. “I have the motivation to win every tournament I play in, especially the big ones”.
“To me, the biggest surprise was Serena had lost the two finals at slams and then a semifinal”, said former world No. 1 Martina Navratilova. You could see her collect herself, dig deep, and dip into an nearly super-human well of energy as Pliskova started to flag in the heat and the humidity.
Never a Grand Slam finalist before 2016, the German beat Williams for the Australian Open title in January, then lost to her in the Wimbledon final in July. I will try to take this challenge, because it will be a little bit new situation for me.
By the conclusion of the 2-hour, 7-minute final, Pliskova totaled 47 unforced errors, 30 more than Kerber.
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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.
