The 28-year-old left-hander, who won the Australian Open in January and was Wimbledon runner-up in July, is the first German woman to reach the final in NY since Steffi Graf in 1996.
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Reaching top of the world seems to agree with Angelique Kerber, who on Thursday celebrated her ascension to the No. 1 ranking with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Caroline Wozniacki to advance to today’s US Open final.
It turns out that Williams was suffering from a bad left knee that slowed her down throughout the night. “Being a professional, if I am not able to recover, I am not going to make excuses”.
“My mind was just a little bit everywhere, but it was what it was…”
The 28-year-old Kerber, the Australian Open victor, waited in the wings as Karolina Pliskova defeated Serena Williams in the first semifinal. “She has a big serve”. Victories over the Williams sisters demonstrate her strength and consistency, and she has the power to push Kerber hard in the championship match.
Pliskova, who survived a match point en route to a fourth-round victory over Venus Williams, was almost betrayed by her nerves as up 3-0 in the tiebreaker she produced three errors, including a double fault.
Pliskova won six matches to get to the final, and all of her matches except her fourth-round victory over Venus Williams came in straight sets. “I think if she had played any less then maybe I would have had a chance”.
She is chasing a 12th win in a row, obliterated Williams with her deadly serve and also beat Kerber only last month en route to winning the title in Cincinnati. I hope I didn’t stop yet, that there is still one more step to go. This is really special for me because I dreamed of becoming No1.’, stated the German. Obviously the match with Venus helped me, not only with the game, but also with the crowd as well.
On match point, a replay showed that Kerber’s final shot was beyond the baseline, but Wozniacki did not ask for a review and instead walked off the court. She had already lost in the Australian and French Open finals, although she did win Wimbledon. Even me, I’m sometimes not playing when I’m 100 per cent ready and I don’t think others care. Since the start of the grass-court season she has won 23 of her 27 matches and she is now on an 11-match winning run.
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Kerber raced out to a 4-0 lead in the opening set as Wozniacki could only manage to win five points in the early games. The defeat means she will lose her No. 1 WTA ranking for the first time since February 2013.
