Sixteen years after winning the last of her two titles here at the US Open, Venus Williams is within two wins of securing the most remarkable Grand Slam triumph of her career.
The 37-year-old American, already a runner-up at the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2017, is through to her first Flushing Meadows semi-final for seven years thanks to a stunning victory over Petra Kvitova.
The five-times Wimbledon champion beat the two-times Wimbledon champion 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 on Tuesday in a pulsating heavyweight contest between two of the game’s biggest hitters. Kvitova led 3-1 in the deciding set before Williams fought back and then played a superb tie-break to secure a place in her 23rd Grand Slam semi-final.
“It definitely felt like a special match,” Williams said afterwards. “There were no easy moments. It wasn’t easy to hold serve or break serve. This match meant a lot to me, obviously, playing at home and of course it being a major.”
At 37 years and three months Williams beat her own record, which she had set at Wimbledon this summer, as the oldest player to make the semi-finals of a Grand Slam event since 1994, when Martina Navratilova was Wimbledon runner-up at the age of 37 years and eight months.
Williams will be competing in her third Grand Slam semi-final of the season for the first time since 2002. It has been an extraordinary year for the world No 9, who until the Australian Open in January had not appeared in a Grand Slam final since 2009.
The American will rise to No 2 in the world rankings if she wins the title on Saturday and is already guaranteed to return to the top five for the first time since 2011. That was the year when she revealed that she had been diagnosed with Sjogren’s syndrome, an incurable auto-immune disease that causes fatigue and joint pain.
In her 19th US Open and in her 76th appearance in the main draw of a Grand Slam event - which is a record for the Open era - Williams faces a semi-final on Thursday against 24-year-old Sloane Stephens, who as a black American has long been considered a natural successor to the Williams sisters.
Despite the absence of Serena Williams, the year’s concluding Grand Slam tournament could yet produce an all-American semi-final line-up. In Wednesday’s remaining quarter-finals Madison Keys and Coco Vandeweghe will take on Kaia Kanepi and Karolina Pliskova respectively.
“It's been a great two weeks for American tennis, seeing all the American players in the draw and all of them advancing so deep and competing so well,” Williams said. “All I have known all my life was great American players, so it’s great to see this resurgence. I hope it can continue.”
Only eight weeks ago Williams played so poorly in the latter stages of the Wimbledon final against Garbine Muguruza that there were fears that it might be her last appearance on such a big stage, but she has shown here that she has every intention of continuing to compete for major honours.
Kvitova, who had knocked out Muguruza, the tournament favourite, in the previous round, pushed Williams hard as the 27-year-old Czech continued her own remarkable comeback since suffering horrific injuries to her left hand in a knife attack by an intruder in her home last December.
The two women fought a thrilling toe-to-battle in the opening match of the night session in Arthur Ashe Stadium. With both women hitting huge ground strokes and crunching serves as they attempted to dictate the rallies at the first opportunity, most of the exchanges were short.
Williams dropped serve in the third game of the first set after making three double faults, but from 1-3 down the American won five games in a row as Kvitova struggled to find her timing. Williams won the first set in just 33 minutes, finishing the job with an unreturned serve.
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