“I’m not surprised that she has made it so far”. In addition to her four Olympic medals, Serena, who is coached by Patrick Mouratoglou, now has 21 Grand Slam singles titles to her name, just one behind Graf’s open-era record. “I thought if I can just win a set…” “I think he’s a little bit on a different level than all the other players, but still I’m in good shape and the match starts at 0-0”.
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It was not to be, however, and when Williams finally did get into her stride, she was unstoppable. This time not only she was playing the twenty-six seed, but the crowd as well, since Mladenovic was one of the remaining French.
Paris: Novak Djokovic reached his 30th Grand Slam semi-final on Thursday but his quest for a first French Open title was nearly scuppered by disqualification. In the fourth round, Williams beat Elina Svitolina without complications. Miscue followed miscue, until she was a set and a break down in the French Open quarterfinals. According to ESPN Stats & Info, Serena’s win over Putinseva was the 36th time in a Grand Slam Serena dropped the first set only to rally and win the match. Bertens now has three career wins over top-10 players which includes two in this tournament. In the second round, she faced another tough opponent, the always challenging, Camila Giorgi but she overpowered the Italian in straight sets. She knows she’ll need a more Williams-like effort to survive Bertens’ bullets on Friday. The American, Madison Keys was next.
Thiem can boast wins over Nadal and Roger Federer this season but has never taken a set against Djokovic. But the Dutch proved to be too strong and beat her in straight sets. Unseeded, Bertens defeated the No. 8 seed Timea Bacsinszky to advance to the match against Williams.
After all, Williams had yet to drop a set at this year’s championships, she is a three-time Roland Garros champion and was playing in her 44th grand slam quarter-final.
This will be the second meeting between Bertens and Williams, the first one also happened at a major previous year. Williams needed to erase two set points for the 58th-ranked Bertens in the opener, but managed to get through it.
Here, she looked to be repairing the damage without fuss, up 4-1 in the second, until again losing focus and getting dragged into a deuce war on her serve at four-all that had the patrons gasping at her repeated mistakes.
Greg Garber and Johnette Howard explain why Serena Williams’ performance in the quarterfinals of the French Open makes her your espnW Star of the Day. Williams, 34, is a decade older than Bertens. What’s the point of this?’ The court won’t get better.
She readily admits that she would have scoffed, dismissed it as “the best joke ever”, had someone predicted this future for her several weeks ago.
Murray won’t under-estimate Wawrinka who stunned Djokovic in last year’s final.
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– Williams has amassed around $76 million in career prize money, while Putintseva is close to making her first million.
