“Keep fighting!” Serena yells herself to Open win
NEW YORK » Her breathing loud enough to hear in an empty Arthur Ashe Stadium, her third- set deficit a point from growing to 3- 1 against someone who beat her less than two weeks earlier, Serena Williams scrambled to extend a 13- stroke exchange until her opponent netted a forehand.
“Keep fighting!” Williams exhorted herself.
Locked in a tough fourthround match Monday, and without the benefit of a pro- American audience, Williams provided her own encouragement along the way to coming back and beating 15th- seeded Maria Sakkari of Greece 6- 3, 6- 7 ( 6), 6- 3, reaching the quarterfinals in a 12th consecutive appearance at Flushing Meadows.
“I feel like I’m pretty vocal with or without a crowd. ... I’m super passionate. This is my job. This is what I wake up to do. This is what I train to do, 365 days of the year,” said Williams, who moved a step closer to a recordtying 24th Grand Slam title.
“Yeah, I’m always going to bring that fire and that passion,” she continued, “and that ‘ Serena’ to the court.”
When the match ended, after Williams collected six of the last seven games, she turned and yelled toward her husband, who stood at his front- row seat and yelled right back.
How tight was this contest? Sakkari produced more aces than Williams, 13- 12, and more total winners, 35- 30.
Williams was two points from victory at 6- all in the second- set tiebreaker, but faltered there, sending a backhand return long to give Sakkari her fifth set point, then pushing a forehand out.
But as is so often the case, when the outcome was hanging in the balance in the third set, which Sakkari led 2- 0 but couldn’t quite get to 3- 1, Williams was better down the stretch.
“I have to be deadly honest: I wasn’t brave enough in the third set. I kind of like, not choked, but didn’t ( convert) my chances,” Sakkari said. “And if you don’t get your chances with a good Serena against you, it’s done.”
This was a rematch from Aug. 25, when Williams faded after building a lead and lost in three sets to Sakkari at the Western & Southern Open, a hard- court tournament usually held in Ohio but moved to the U. S. Open site as part of a two- tournament “controlled environment.”
“Of course I thought about ( the loss), but ever so little, because it’s a completely different match, completely different scenario, completely different moment,” Williams said.