{"id":246953,"date":"2016-09-09T05:20:41","date_gmt":"2016-09-09T05:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=246953"},"modified":"2016-09-09T05:20:41","modified_gmt":"2016-09-09T05:20:41","slug":"karolina-pliskova-stuns-serena-williams-in-us-open-semi-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=246953","title":{"rendered":"Karolina Pliskova stuns Serena Williams in US Open semi-final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Czech 10th seed Karolina Pliskova outplayed Serena Williams to reach the US Open final and end the American’s reign as world number one.<\/p>\n

Williams, 34, double-faulted on match point to lose 6-2 7-6 (7-5), and Pliskova will face German second seed Angelique Kerber in the final.<\/p>\n

The result guarantees that Kerber will overtake Williams at the top of the rankings after the US Open.<\/p>\n

Williams had also hoped to win an Open-era record 23rd major singles title.<\/p>\n

She remains tied with Steffi Graf for both Grand Slam titles, and the WTA record of 186 successive weeks as world number one.<\/p>\n

“Karolina played great today,” said Williams, who revealed she had been hampered by a sore left knee since earlier in the tournament<\/p>\n

“I think if she had played any less then maybe I would have had a chance. So I think I wasn’t at 100%, but I also think she played well. She deserved to win today.”<\/p>\n

Australian Open champion Kerber beat Denmark’s Carolina Wozniacki 6-4 6-3 to reach her first US Open final.<\/p>\n

“It’s just incredible, it’s a great day,” said Kerber. “To be here in the final for the first time means a lot and to be number one in the world – it sounds amazing.”<\/p>\n

Pliskova wins battle of big serves<\/h3>\n

Pliskova went into the match on a 10-match winning streak, and with the most aces on the WTA Tour this year, and it was that buy accutane online<\/a> shot which carried the Czech to victory.<\/p>\n

It took Williams 50 minutes to earn her first break point as the Czech nullified her returns, while attacking the American’s second serve.<\/p>\n

That brought Pliskova two breaks as she raced through the first set in just 26 minutes, and the home crowd on Arthur Ashe Stadium urged on Williams as the six-time champion fell behind midway through the second set.<\/p>\n

Williams sparked into life, finally breaking Pliskova’s serve – to love – but the anticipated comeback was cut short in the tie-break.<\/p>\n

There were a few signs of nerves as Pliskova let a 3-0 lead slip but from 5-4 in front, Williams produced a forehand wide, a backhand long and a double fault to end with 31 unforced errors.<\/p>\n

“I don’t believe it,” said Pliskova, who had never made it past the third round of a Grand Slam in 17 prior attempts.<\/p>\n

“I knew I had the chance to beat anyone if I played my game. I am excited to be in the final and to beat Serena as she is such a great champion.<\/p>\n

“Even when she was down a set and break she was still fighting. I had to fight hard to win.”<\/p>\n

Pliskova saved a match point against Venus Williams in round four and becomes only the fourth woman to beat both Williams sisters in the same Grand Slam tournament.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Czech 10th seed Karolina Pliskova outplayed Serena Williams to reach the US Open final and end the American’s reign as world number one. Williams, 34, double-faulted on match point to lose 6-2 7-6 (7-5), and Pliskova will face German second seed Angelique Kerber in the final. The result guarantees that Kerber will overtake Williams at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":246955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=246953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/246955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=246953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=246953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=246953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}