How to watch: ESPN, 7 p.m.
In the United States Open women’s singles semifinals on Thursday night, Serena Williams plays Elina Svitolina, and Belinda Bencic faces Bianca Andreescu.
First set: Williams 3, Svitolina 0
Serena Williams jumps to an early lead.
The first two games of the first U.S. Open semifinal were battles. Williams, serving to open, needed to fend off three break points before holding.
In Svitolina’s opening service game, she double-faulted on two game points and then staved off two break points before Williams converted the third to go up 2-0, smacking an easy backhand return winner off a 79 m.p.h. second serve.
The third game was far simpler for Williams, who held at love to bring the match to its first changeover after 18 minutes. She sat down with a 3-0 lead as thousands of fans who had been waiting in the stadium corridors scurried to their seats.
Can Serena Williams seal the deal?
Among Serena Williams’s best skills as she asserted herself as the best player of her generation was her closing ability. In her first 28 Grand Slam semifinal appearances, Williams went on to win the title 21 times, a 75 percent conversion rate.
Yet starting with her loss to Roberta Vinci in the 2015 U.S. Open semifinals, Williams has won only two titles out of nine major semifinal appearances — a 22 percent conversion rate.
In her search for her record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles title, Williams has reached four finals since returning from the birth of her daughter and lost them all.
Williams has dropped only one set on her way to semifinal — to the 17-year-old Caty McNally in the second round. She has two notable routs: a 6-1, 6-1 win over Maria Sharapova in the first round, and a 6-1, 6-0 victory over Wang Qiang in the fourth.
How does Elina Svitolina match up against Serena Williams?
Williams, seeded eighth at this year’s Open, is 4-1 against the fifth-seeded Elina Svitolina. But Svitolina, a 24-year-old from Ukraine, won their last meeting, in the third round of the 2016 Rio Olympics. They have not played since Williams, 37, left the tour for maternity leave and Svitolina became a fixture in the top 10.
Svitolina reached the semifinals of a major for the first time at Wimbledon in July. She lost to the eventual champion, Simona Halep, 6-1, 6-3.
But she has been well prepared for the challenge of facing Williams by this year’s draw, which has forced her to navigate a barrage of power players in her last four rounds: Venus Williams, No. 32 Dayana Yastremska, No. 10 Madison Keys and No. 16 Johanna Konta. Svitolina has not lost a set in the tournament.
Svitolina said that practicing with her boyfriend, the French tennis star Gaël Monfils, had helped her prepare to face big hitters on the women’s tour.
A first-time finalist is guaranteed.
Thursday’s second semifinal will feature two first-time Grand Slam semifinalists, as the 13th-seeded Belinda Bencic, 22, will face 15th-seeded Bianca Andreescu, 19, in a match between prodigies who could have arrived to this stage even faster, if not for injuries.
Though they have never played, they will recognize much in each other. Bencic won the 2015 Rogers Cup in Toronto at 18; Andreescu won the title there last month, at 19. Both are known for preternatural court sense and comfort playing all-court games.
Ranked 178th at the end of last season, Andreescu has soared up the rankings despite not playing a full schedule. She reached the final in Auckland, New Zealand, in the first week of the year, won a small tournament in Newport Beach, Calif., and then surged to the title at Indian Wells, Calif., one of the biggest WTA tournaments outside the Grand Slams.
Midway through the Miami Open the following week, Andreescu was sidelined by a shoulder injury that kept her off the tour for most of the next four months. When she returned in August at the Rogers Cup in Toronto, her home country’s largest tournament, she continued her winning ways by taking the title.
After drawing overflow crowds to small courts for her first two matches in New York, Andreescu has won her last three in Arthur Ashe Stadium, including victories over the two-time U.S. Open finalist Caroline Wozniacki in the third round; against the qualifier Taylor Townsend in the fourth round; and over 25th-seeded Elise Mertens in the quarterfinals Wednesday.
Bencic also has surged up the rankings after finishing last year at 37th. After winning the Hopman Cup with her Swiss countryman Roger Federer to start her season, Bencic won the prestigious WTA event in Dubai, pulling off four consecutive wins over top-10 players: No. 9 Aryna Sabalenka, No. 2 Simona Halep, No. 6 Svitolina and No. 4 Petra Kvitova.
After beating No. 1 Naomi Osaka at Indian Wells and Madrid, Bencic defeated her for the third time this year in the fourth round of the U.S. Open. In her first Grand Slam quarterfinal in five years, Bencic beat No. 23 Donna Vekic in straight sets to make her first major semifinal.
Source : NYtimes
