This archive report was first published on 6 September 2019.
U.S. Open Semifinals: Serena Williams Advances ¶
On Thursday night, Serena Williams played Elina Svitolina in the United States Open women's singles semifinals. Williams won the first set 6-3 and held a 4-1 lead in the second set.
Williams took the first set over Svitolina, 6-3. She held on to the break she earned in Svitolina’s opening service game, saving six break points in the set over all. Williams was able to dictate rallies frequently, and hit 19 winners to Svitolina’s seven, while having only one more unforced error than Svitolina (11 to 10).
Williams closed out the set with a 116 m.p.h. serve that Svitolina returned into the net. Williams is 94-1 when winning the first set at the U.S. Open; her lone loss came in a 2015 semifinal against Roberta Vinci.
Williams has reached four finals since returning from the birth of her daughter and lost them all. She has dropped only one set on her way to this semifinal — to the 17-year-old Caty McNally in the second round.
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.
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.
