The 28-year-old left-hander, who beat Serena Williams in the final at Melbourne and lost to the U.S. great in the Wimbledon final, will officially rise to World No. 1 on Monday.
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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.
The US player was predominating in the world ranking since 2013, and Kerber materialized her deed after winning in the US Open, last Grand Slam of the present season, and the second Kerber wins in her whole tennis playing career.
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.
There were plenty of lengthy exchanges in that first set, and Kerber tended to get the better of them, winning 9 of 14 points that lasted at least 10 strokes. Pliskova racked up 17 unforced errors in the first set alone.
Kerber won the toss and elected to receive, perhaps for two reasons: Her serve remains the biggest question mark in a game otherwise full of answers, and it made sense to force Pliskova to deal with an early test of nerves. And when she fell behind a break early in the third and deciding set at Arthur Ashe Stadium, it seemed as it if she would do just that.
The 28-year-old has returned the favour in NY as her victory preserves two of Graf’s long-lasting records.
Kerber’s final round was a nail-biting 3-3 deciding set. But Kerber said she was exhausted after playing the Rio Olympics, where she won the silver medal.
Faced with the challenge, Kerber admitted she was a little negative in the second set, but said she drew on the memory of her Australian Open triumph to will herself on, even after conceding the first break of the third set to fall behind 2-1. It was always my goal to pass the third round, and I made it to the final. I’m really happy that right now is my time because my career has been very up-and-down.
Pliskova couldnt maintain the advantage. “Now I can also take the next step and try to stay as long as I can there”.
For now, she will have to time to reflect on her recent experiences which included a USA television breakfast-show appearance alongside Hollywood star Patrick Dempsey and Italian film icon Sophia Loren.
Amidst the disappointment she was looking forward to building on her breakthrough Slam performance.
“I lost a lot of matches with this stuff, because I was frustrated”, Kerber said. But at the end, I was always practicing and working hard to be No1. Pliskova fights back with a 40-30 win in the fifth, but drops consecutive games afterwards to give Angelique Kerber the opening set of their championship match.
That has all changed now, though, and Kerber believes her success is down to an improved mentality. She eventually won the game and took a 4-3 lead, and a clearly waning Pliskova, who began to kneel down after every point, committed multiple unforced errors which doomed her in the final two games and sealed the win for Kerber.
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He is 3-0 in Grand Slam finals, beating the No. 1-ranked player each time. She explained that her confidence came from knowing exactly what will happen after the final, win or lose, so she could just go out there and play. It is totally ironic that Angelique won the US Open by defeating Karolina Pliskova, but it wasn’t more than a few weeks ago that Karolina and Kerber were in the final of the Western and Southern Open where Karolina won over Kerber in straight sets.
