US OPEN – Serena Williams (1) has ensured that there would be one Williams sister in the US Open semifinals this year when she knocked out fellow American Madison Keys (19) in straight sets 6-3 6-3 in 68 minutes. Serena will face her sister Venus Williams (22) who earlier took out qualifier Annett Kontaveit in straight sets 6-2 6-1. It will be the 27th meeting between the two sisters with Serena leading the head to head 15-11; she is also ahead in their meetings at majors with 8-5. Serena, however, has won the last 6 of 7 meetings between the two.
This match up between Serena and Keys was build to high expectations; current generation and future generation of American tennis. Keys does possess the big game to take on the likes of Serena and despite it not being stated more often enough, Keys can out hit Serena. However, the most underrated part of Serena’s game, her all court game as well as her ability to play subtle tennis, is what is particularly difficult for Keys if she is not playing her best tennis. Today against, Keys, she played the patient game. Unlike her other matches, Williams was very clean on her service game as she never faced a single break point for the entire match. Whenever Serena is holding serve comfortably, it means that she is far more relaxed on her return game putting the pressure on her opponent. Keys soon felt that pressure, down 3-4 in the opening set when she double faulted twice to give Serena the crucial break for a 5-3 lead. Recognizing the type of player Keys is, Serena wasted no time to close out the set on her serve for 6-3 in 27 minutes.
In the 2nd set, Serena increased the pressure as she created several early break point opportunities on the Keys serve which were rare in the opening set. Keys was able to fight off most of them but Serena converted in the 7th game for a 4-3. She consolidated for 5-3 and forced Keys to serve to stay in the match. Again the pressure was too much as Keys double faulted on match point. It was the 6th double fault for Keys as opposed to none from Serena who took the match 6-3 6-3 in just over an hour. “She was playing really, really well today. I feel like I had to play my absolute best … It was one of those things where if I wasn’t hitting a winner, I feel like she was. she wasn’t giving me many unforced errors,” Keys said after the match.
The numbers were very impressive from Williams with only 6 errors for the entire match compared to 19 from Keys. Both players had a lot of winners with Keys at 24 and Serena at 18. However, it was the serve that was most critical particularly the 2nd serve where Serena was winning 70% of her second serve points and Keys only 36%. In fact Serena only dropped 12 points on serve for the match. Keys is confident about her game and looks forward to the rest of the season. As to whether she will be cheering Serena for the “Calendar Slam” now that she has lost, “[D]efinitely I want her to make history and win.”
