Angelique Kerber has admitted that she was determined to live up to her own expectation levels by beating Karolina Pliskova in Saturday’s US Open final. ESPN’s Peter Bodo explains how the strength in her legs gives her a significant advantage. “To win in Cincinnati was the biggest title of my career”, she said. Carolyn task of how to successfully begin to act from the very beginning of the fight to Kerber did not get a head start, and all it will bring a good chance for success.
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Kerber takes home the winners’ cheque for 3.5million U.S. dollars and becomes the first woman, other than Williams, to win two grand slams in a year since Justine Henin in 2007. The challenger, seeded No. 10, went on to win the second set.
Kerber collects $3.5 million for the win and moves to 54-14 on the 2016 season, a year that has been better for her than anyone else on tour as she ascends to No. 1 at 28, the oldest player to ever do so for the first time.
It seemed that Kerber was about to produce an object lesson in how easily we regress to an earlier self, even if it isn’t a better one.
Pliskova’s win over Serena was no doubt the moment of the women’s event, though Kerber’s unbridled steadiness has vaulted her safely to No. 1. Suddenly the pessimistic mannerisms evaporated.
Her serve is a weakness: She was broken while serving for the match against Wozniacki, for example, and lost three service games in the first set alone of her quarterfinal against 2015 runner-up Roberta Vinci. Kerber, however, is made of stern stuff and gritted her teeth.
Kerber got broken early in the third and bounced her racket off the court. It’s the same quality she showed the last two weeks in NY, when she dropped just one set in seven matches. “Trying to play my game”. It sets an example for all the other talented but flawed WTA contenders, and blows apart the theory that parity is inevitable.
As she does against most opponents, Kerber would make Pliskova swing two, three, four extra times to try to end a point. She shocked Serena Williams in the Australian Open in January, then was runner up to the American at Wimbledon in July.
She lost the Olympic gold-medal match to 34th-ranked Monica Puig then fell to Pliskova in the Cincinnati final when a victory would have clinched the No. 1 ranking. “It means so much to me”, said Kerber with tear in her eyes.
Pliskova said that the fact Kerber is left-handed was also a key factor in the way the final played out.
“(Here) I can really prepare for the final against Pliskova.
“So there is a whole bunch of stuff going on, but the younger generation is definitely coming up”. It was a rare competitive match in a women’s final here, only the fourth three-setter in 22 years.
“So I was just happy that I made it even this far”.
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Kerber, who beat twice Wimbledon victor Petra Kvitova in the fourth round and last year’s Open runner-up Roberta Vinci in the quarters before eliminating former world number one Caroline Wozniacki in the semis, is now focusing on a second slam title. But in the ensuing months, she backslid. It showed in her body language and in her results. She was limited to winning just 49 per cent of points on her first serve, and it is incredibly hard to win any match doing that.
