Serena Williams beats Elina Svitolina to reach U.S. open finals
NEW YORK — While deciphering the usual graffiti of tennis-match statistics in search of the most telltale from Serena Williams’s win Thursday night in Arthur Ashe Stadium, fix the eye upon that vigorous little category that would test the neck of any statistician sitting courtside: points with rallies of nine shots or more.
In that column, a 37-year-old mother of a 2-year-old and the winner of a U.S. Open that actually happened last century (1999) appears to have played 13 points against her 24-year-old opponent ranked fifth in the world and known for a capacity to slug it around all night long if necessary.
Of those points, the 37-year-old mother of a 2-year-old won 10.
As Williams bested Elina Svitolina, 6-3, 6-1, in 70 minutes and as Williams found her way to a whopping fourth Grand Slam final since giving birth and as she claimed her fourth chance in the past two seasons to tie Margaret Court atop the all-time list at 24 Grand Slams and as she roared into a 33rd Grand Slam final, that 10-3 number does bolster an impression.
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This does look like Williams’s best form of the four recent finals, which could prove handy against the fresh force of women’s tennis, 19-year-old Bianca Andreescu, who zoomed from a 5-2 inconvenience in the second set and won a semifinal of surpassing quality and frequent beauty over Belinda Bencic of Switzerland, 7-6 (7-3), 7-5. That arranged a final between a 15th-ranked Canadian who called it “surreal” in her first U.S. Open main draw and a legend nearing 38 but looking happy in her movement on court and her untroubled countenance off it. Quintessential evidence came midway through Williams’s second set, when she chased down a decent drop shot, flicked it cross-court for a winner and hovered over a chair, watching it travel and land in pretty obedience.
“I felt more prepared this tournament,” Williams said. “I mean, Wimbledon, I probably had a week to prepare, so that was amazing. Australia, I was super-prepared. I did great, then rolled my ankle [in the quarterfinals against Karolina Pliskova]. I shouldn’t have even played the French Open. That was just a bonus just to compete in another Grand Slam.
“I just feel like I actually had time to train. I joked I trained more for Canada [last month] than I did for any other tournament this year, which is kind of funny.”
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She reached the final there with four considerable wins, including one over Naomi Osaka, then retired at 3-1 of the first set with back spasms against Andreescu. What seemed an impediment now seems a blip as Williams will try Saturday to refrain from outcomes that went as follows: a 6-3, 6-3 loss to Angelique Kerber in the 2018 Wimbledon final; a 6-2, 6-4 loss to Osaka in the 2018 U.S. Open final; and a 6-2, 6-2 loss to a sublime Simona Halep in the 2019 Wimbledon final.
If she resembles the player from the semifinal, always a question in a final — “There’s so many different emotions in finals,” she said — it looks like enough against anyone. The winners went 34-11 in her favor. She kept her unforced errors at a manageable 20 (to Svitolina’s 17). And she plied an long-established Williams trade, that of the nerveless sovereignty on the pivotal point.
In the first, second and fifth games, Svitolina, who beat Williams in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in their previous meeting and who had lost zero sets here, had a combined 12 break points or game points. She got none of those. “Had the chances, but in the same time she played really, really focused and very precise on those two games,” the Ukrainian said.
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Twelve moments: four Williams winners, one Williams ace, four forced errors, one Svitolina double fault, two Svitolina unforced errors. Svitolina felt those points gave Williams “the push to play more freely,” but also said: “But again, that’s why she is who she is. You are playing in front of the best tennis player in the world. If you don’t take it, she just grabs it, and there’s no chance to take it back.”
After those five games, Williams led 4-1. In the second set, she became even a notch more airtight, and for good whiles it seemed Svitolina had no way to get a ball past her. Then they concluded and complimented each other, and the sport had come back to a familiar threshold.
That threshold will find Williams again trying to pull even with Court, who won 13 of her Grand Slams before the Open era began in 1968 and 11 more afterward. It will find Williams seeking a seventh U.S. Open title 20 years after her first, of which she said: “At 17, I thought for sure I’d be retired at 28, 29, living my life. So, yeah, I would have thought [still playing at 37] was a sick joke.”
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It will find Williams against someone not yet born in 1999 yet who has rocked the sport in 2019 with a steep ascent fueled by a sudden title in late winter at Indian Wells and who epitomizes what Williams said when she stopped herself mid-sentence and wisecracked, “It’s cool because I’m playing in an era with — five eras with so many amazing players.” And finally, it will star a working mother of 37 who moved around well enough Thursday night to win 10 marathon points out of 13.
— Chuck Culpepper
In-match updates
Game, set match: Williams def. Svitolina, 6-3, 6-1
Williams moved on with ease to her second straight U.S. Open final, where she’ll play for her seventh title and the chance, once again, to tie Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles. The 37-year-old played perhaps her best match of the tournament, considering No. 5 seed Svitolina’s top-notch defense and counterpunching. Williams overpowered the Ukranian with 34 winners.
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Second set: Williams takes an early break, 2-1
Williams won a thrilling, 13-shot rally — one of the longest of the match so far — then converted on break point to extend her lead in the second set.
First set: Williams wins, 6-3
Williams took her ninth straight set this U.S. Open and is just one away from another final. She’s moving well and her shots are on target. Svitolina seems to have lost some of the verve she had early on this match.
First set: Williams goes up 4-1
The 2018 runner-up is cooking now. It looked as though Williams’ shots were just a hair off earlier in this set — she missed a backhand down the line that she rarely misses and over-hit a forehand slam — but looks more and more comfortable as the set rolls on. A powerful serve-and-volley to save break point (she’s saved six so far) was particularly impressive.
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First set: Williams takes a 3-0 edge
Nineteen minutes later, and we’ve made it through … three games. Williams started shifting into a higher gear in the third game of this set after a competitive, back-and-forth start, and she looks to be rounding into form. The last game was by far her most dominant.
For starters: Williams leads, 1-0
Svitolina took Williams to deuce (three times!) after the 23-time Grand Slam champion started her first service game with two errors. Svitolina is testing Williams’ movement more than any opponent has yet this U.S. Open — and to much success, but Williams eked out the game.
Post-match reading
First semifinal: No. 5 seed Elina Svitolina vs. No. 8 seed Serena Williams
Williams surged into another Grand Slam semifinal Tuesday with an absolute flattening of Qiang Wang, a 6-1, 6-0 affair in the quarterfinals that seemed to stress neither her mind nor the right ankle she rolled a few days earlier. The pressure, of course, ramps up now, as Williams is (again) two wins away from capturing her record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles title.
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A win for Williams in Thursday’s semifinal, the first of the night, would also tie Chris Evert’s record of 101 singles victories at the U.S. Open. But first, Williams must get through 24-year-old Elina Svitolina, a Ukrainian who’s one of the best on tour at counterpunching — not just defending, but absorbing her opponent’s power and redirecting it with a crafty shot. Svitolina, ranked No. 5 in the world, has rolled through such power players as Venus Williams and Madison Keys without dropping a set in New York thus far. Critically for Svitolina’s confidence, she also owns a win against Williams, which came at the 2016 Summer Olympics. Before then, the Ukrainian had lost four straight matches against the 37-year-old.
In her last five Grand Slam events, Williams has advanced to the finals three times, losing all three championship matches.
Second semifinal: No. 13 seed Belinda Bencic vs. No. 15 seed Bianca Andreescu
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In Thursday’s second semifinal, current prodigy meets former prodigy when 19-year-old Bianca Andreescu faces 22-year-old Belinda Bencic.
Andreescu, the Canadian daughter of Romanian immigrants who beat Elise Mertens 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 Wednesday night, hadn’t so much as played a main-draw match at the U.S. Open before this year. But her success is somewhat unsurprising: The teenager has been on a tear this year. She’s 7-10 against top 10 players this season, 13-3 in three-set matches, and she hasn’t lost a completed match since March. That last stat is somewhat misleading — Andreescu missed most of the clay-court season and all of the grass-court season with a rotator cuff injury — but it does speak to her talent on hard courts, where her all-court game and incredible power really shine. Should Andreescu beat Bencic, she would have a chance to become the first Canadian to win a Grand Slam singles title.
But Bencic, who beat Donna Vekic 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 in the quarterfinals, is a tricky opponent. With a (you guessed it) all-court game crafted by Melanie Molitor, Martina Hingis’s mother and coach, Bencic is not only a talented attacker and powerful server, she’s also no stranger to big moments at the U.S. Open. Fans may remember her as the precocious 17-year-old who made the quarterfinals in 2014; this year, she became the first Swiss woman since Hingis in 2001 to reach the Final Four in New York.
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