It has been four years since Serena Williams made it to the final of a United States Open, and so much has happened in that time. She won five other Grand Slam titles over those years, married and, best of all, became a mother.
The only thing that seemed to elude her on the tennis court was another Open title. She has six already, but one more will break a tie with Chris Evert for the most by a woman, and will also draw her even with Margaret Court with 24 major singles titles.
Williams got back to an Open final by dominating Anastasija Sevastova, 6-3, 6-0, under the closed roof at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Williams, seeded 17th, will play the winner of the other semifinal between No. 14 Madison Keys and No. 20 Naomi Osaka of Japan, which was contested later in the same stadium.
For Williams, 36, it will be playing in her ninth Open final, and she owns a 6-2 record going into it.
A year ago at this time, she had just given birth to her daughter, and experienced complications from her cesarean delivery.
Williams has long been a role model for women, African-Americans and other minorities, and now she has taken up the mantle for working mothers since she returned to the WTA tour in March.
Her last match before going on maternity leave was the 2017 Australian Open final, which she won for her 23rd Grand Slam singles title, the most of anyone in the Open era.
Her results since she came back have been uneven, with some quick exits at a few tournaments. But she has increasingly found her footing, especially at Grand Slam events.
She reached the Wimbledon final in July, and has been a dominating performance at the Open, where she marched into the final while dropping only one set. Williams has served notice that she is back in top-flight form.
That is welcome news to her legion of fans and supporters, many of whom filled Ashe Stadium on Thursday with a buzz of overwhelming support for her.
As Williams walked to the baseline to serve for the first time, the audience backed her with a loud roar. She fixed her hair, bounced the ball four times, served, and then swatted a forehand long. The crowd, which barely expressed any interest in Sevastova, a 28-year-old from Latvia, fell silent.
Indeed, Sevastova broke Williams in that game, and for a few minutes there was some unease, especially with Williams uncharacteristically hitting several forehands long. But gradually she began to find her timing, and the 19th-seeded Sevastova, who depends on craft and guile, appeared to feel the pressure of the moment.
“I said, all, right, these guys really want to be out here and see me play,” she said in an on-court interview, “so I’ve got to give it the best I can.”
Sevastova’s signature drop shot, which she used to great effect to upset the defending champion Sloane Stephens in the quarterfinals, eluded her. She seemed to be overwhelmed in her first Grand Slam singles semifinal.
In the third game of the second set, Sevastova ran in to get to a ball with Williams at net. She had plenty of room to drive it past Williams with a hard crosscourt backhand, but she attempted a lob, and the ball sailed long.
The rest of the way was a matter of inevitability. In the end, which arrived just 66 minutes after her first serve, Williams won 12 of the last 13 games, coming to the net to win 24 of 28 points at the net, which she does not normally do.
“I usually only come in to shake hands,” she said.
Williams improved her remarkable record in Grand Slam singles semifinals to 31-5. The last two losses she sustained at the semifinal stage came at the Open. In 2015, she was stunned by Roberta Vinci, who thwarted Williams’s hopes of winning all four major titles in the same year. She then lost to Karolina Pliskova in the 2016 semifinals.
But Williams is finally back in a United States Open final, and as she told the fans after her victory, she is only just beginning.
Source : NYtimes
