Williams up to speed in hunt for elusive milestone
American in peak form to claim 24th major title Svitolina’s returning ability faces tough test
Serena Williams has endured a sequence of frustrating near-misses at the majors since her return from maternity leave last spring. So you have to admire the resilience with which she keeps pushing for a record-equalling 24th title.
Not for the first time, the draw is opening up in tantalising fashion. Having cleared Qiang Wang from her path on Tuesday night in an absurd 44 minutes, Williams is now the only woman left in the draw who has played in a major final.
In tonight’s semi-final, she will face Elina Svitolina – the supreme retriever who eliminated Johanna Konta on Tuesday afternoon. This has the look of a potential classic: beefy groundstrokes on one side and blanket court coverage on the other.
Yet to drop a set in the tournament, Svitolina has been the cleanest player on show, committing less than one unforced error per game. Yet it is hardly as if she has had an easy ride. Three of her first five opponents have been mighty hitters: not only Konta, who leads the standings for clean winners, but Venus Williams, Serena’s sister, and Madison Keys, whose average forehand speed is the highest on either the men’s or women’s tour.
All this should give Svitolina the perfect preparation for tonight’s match. But even after her perfect fortnight to date, she might have trembled a little at what we saw from Williams in the quarter-finals. Wang was so heavily outgunned that she came off the court without a single winner to her name.
“Yeah, that’s a good stat for me,” Williams said, when this unusual blank column was mentioned afterwards. “I’ve been working on my speed, getting shots. I didn’t give her too many chances in the match.”
Mobility has been the hardest thing for Williams to recover since her 14 months out of the game. She has little or no cartilage left in her knees and the structural issues have also seeped into her back, forcing her to retire from the final of Toronto’s Rogers Cup last month.
Behind the scenes, though, the work goes on. After so many close calls, Williams could so easily have shrugged her shoulders and focused on her other lives as a mother and fashionista. But that is not the way of the Goat (shorthand for “Greatest of All Time”).
Instead, she has been putting in those long hours in the gym. When she demolished Maria Sharapova in her opening match of this fortnight, the dominance of her stroke play sent an unmistakable message: Here I am, in peak condition and ready to reclaim what is mine.
In five rounds to date, Williams has only endured the briefest of scares, when the 17-year-old Caty Mcnally channelled the giant-kill
‘I did not give her too many chances in the match’
ing spirit of her even younger doubles partner Cori Gauff. But after dropping the first set, Williams cranked up her serve and sailed away on a tide of aces. No one since has come within touching distance.
You never know which Williams to expect in the post-match interview room – this is a woman who gives names to her different personalities, after all – but she arrived in a soulful and smiley mood after the Wang victory, which happened to be her 100th at the US Open.
Asked whether she remembered her first, she looked around in bafflement before somebody reminded her that it had come against Australia’s Nicole Pratt in 1998.
“No, it doesn’t ring a bell at all,” replied Williams, who has won six titles in New York. For any young player entering their home major for the first time, that has to be the gold standard. To keep playing for so long that you can no longer recall your first victory.
But as you move towards the end of your career, expectations and ambitions weigh heavier by the year. Which is why the US Open has proved the hardest of the majors for Williams to win recently, with her last success coming in 2014. Now, after so much heartache, could the stars finally be aligning?