TENNIS US OPEN – Flavia Pennetta was looking to repeat her 2013 US Open success and perhaps do even better when she made it to the semifinal. However, that task was going to be hard as she faced Serena Williams in the quarterfinals. From New York, Cordell Hackshaw
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Flavia Pennetta (11) was looking to repeat her 2013 US Open success and perhaps do even better when she made it to the semifinal. However, that task was going to be hard as she faced Serena Williams (1) in the quarterfinals. Pennetta has never won a match against the American; in fact, she has only won one set in all of their five previous meetings. However, she would have an excellent start and almost looked poised to get her first win over Williams. Williams raised her level of play to “unplayable” and snatched the match away from Pennetta 6-3 6-2 to make her 6th consecutive US Open semifinals.
To say that Pennetta had an amazing start would be an understatement. She broke Williams in successive service games to lead 3-0. This was a rather ominous start for the Italian. One felt that it was almost going to go the way as it did between Sara Errani and Venus Williams. However, the 17-time major champion put on a display of near perfect tennis. Facing the possibility of going down 0-4, Williams steadily began to fight back into the match. She broke Pennetta and held serve to reduce the deficit to 2-3.
This was the spark that Williams needed to ignite her game back into action. Pennetta who was up 3-0, saw that lead and any opportunity to build off the momentum quickly disappear. Williams was gathering steam and soon was in full force. She would break Pennetta two more times and served out the set 6-3 in less than 29 minutes. Pennetta lost 6 consecutive games and really had no answer to the onslaught from Williams. “I had confidence from the beginning. I get in the court and try to do what I have to do to bring the match home, but she was really good today,” said Pennetta.
In the 2nd set, Pennetta was finally able to hold serve a couple of time though she had to save several break points in the process. She was leading 2-1 when Williams lifted her level again and reeled off a string of games. She won 5 consecutive games to take the match 6-3 6-2 in just over an hour. Williams stated after the match, “[T]onight I was just trying to do what I have been working on in practice. She was playing really well and she was playing, you know, very aggressive. So I had to just step up my level of game, as well.”
Pennetta noted that she wished that she could have served better and looking at the statistics for the match, it is evident that her service game was a serious liability. Pennetta won only 48% of points on her 1st serves and even less on her 2nd serve, 39% with 13 winners and 16 errors. Williams on the other hand was 75% on her 1st serve and 46% on her 2nd serve. She had 31 winners and 19 errors. With those types of figures from Pennetta, Williams had multiple break chances in nearly all of Pennetta’s service game. Williams had 15 break chances and broke Pennetta 5/8 times she went up to serve.
Williams spoke about her upcoming match against Ekaterina Makarova (17) who knocked out 2-time finalist Victoria Azarenka (16) earlier in the day 6-4 6-2. “I think it will be a good match. She’s beaten me before. I am obviously going to go in there and just try to do the best I can … Makarova moves well. She doesn’t care who she plays, she gives 100% … She has that serve that can hit — that can go out wide or you never know where it’s going to go. She’s has a great backhand and she’s improved her forehand. It’s going to be interesting for me to do the best that I can, because, you know, she has a lot of momentum going into this match as well.” Williams leads their head-to-head 3-1.
