Unseeded Sloane Stephens held her nerve to beat Venus Williams in three sets and set up a US Open final against fellow American Madison Keys.<\/p>\n
Stephens, ranked 83rd after recently returning from injury, won 6-1 0-6 7-5 in the first semi-final in New York.<\/p>\n
In another all-US contest, 15th seed Keys then beat compatriot Coco Vandeweghe 6-1 6-2.<\/p>\n
Both Stephens and Keys will make their Grand Slam final debuts on Saturday.<\/p>\n
It will be the first time since Serena Williams beat Venus in 2002 that Flushing Meadows has hosted a women\u2019s final featuring two American players.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving four Americans in the semi-finals, I think that says a lot about American tennis and where we are right now,\u201d said Stephens.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I would have had it any other way. I\u2019m just super proud and honoured to be a part of what these four girls were, what we did tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephens only returned to action at Wimbledon, ranked 957th, after missing 11 months with a foot injury.<\/p>\n
Two months later the 24-year-old is on a run of 14 wins in 16 matches and through to her first major final, with her speed of foot and athleticism to the fore.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no words to describe my feelings and what it took to get here. I have no words,\u201d said Stephens.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no idea how I have done it. Your guess is as good as mine.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone had told me when I started my comeback that I would make two semi-finals and a Grand Slam final I would have passed out. I don\u2019t know how I did it. Just hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams, 37, misses out on returning to the US Open final 15 years after her last, and the two-time champion will end 2017 without adding another major title despite reaching two finals and a semi-final.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it\u2019s about putting myself in the position all the time to get the titles, and that\u2019s exactly what I did,\u201d said Williams.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s all I could do.\u201d<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Unseeded Sloane Stephens held her nerve to beat Venus Williams in three sets and set up a US Open final against fellow American Madison Keys. Stephens, ranked 83rd after recently returning from injury, won 6-1 0-6 7-5 in the first semi-final in New York. In another all-US contest, 15th seed Keys then beat compatriot Coco […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"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":[10906,10907],"class_list":["post-351655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-sloan-stephens","tag-us-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351655","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=351655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351655\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=351655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=351655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=351655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}