Serena Williams has kept her hopes of winning a 24th grand slam title alive at the US Open after coming through a tough second round encounter.
The former world No.1 overcame a sluggish start to her match to prevail 5-7, 6-3, 6-1, over compatriot Caty McNally. A 17-year-old rising star who wasn’t born when Williams won her first major title back in 1999. Despite the early wobble, the world No.8 managed to regain her rhythm to turn the match around and closed it out in emphatic fashion. During the final set, Williams didn’t lose a single point behind her serve. In total she hit 32 winners to 28 unforced errors.
“I had to stop making errors. I made so many errors in the first two sets. You can’t win tournaments making that many errors.” Williams said after.
“I knew I had to play better, and I knew I could.”
Whilst it was a far from smooth performance on the Arthur Ashe stadium, Williams believes there are positives to being pushed early on in a tournament. She kicked off her campaign in Flushing Meadows this year with a more straightforward win over Maria Sharapova where she dropped only two games.
“I think it’s great because I want to be able to win matches where I’m not playing my best, play players who are playing great, be able to come through. I need to be tested, I guess. Sounds scripted.” She said.
“I’d rather not be tested in every match. But that doesn’t happen, so it’s important for me to have those, like, really rough, rowdy matches. That helps a lot.”
The victory continues Williams’ impressive record when it comes to playing early round matches at the US Open. This year is her 19th appearance in the main draw of the major. She had never lost in the first two rounds and only once in the third (1998). Should she win the title in 2019, she would overtake Chris Evert to become the most successful female player in terms of match wins at the US Open in the Open Era.
Up next for Williams will be either the unorthodox playing Hsieh Su-Wei or Karolína Muchova. She has played Su-Wei once before at the 2016 Australian Open where she dropped only three games. However, she is yet to play world No.44 Muchova.
