Serena loses the fear factor

IT was late in this US Open semifinal match, and once again the lopsided nature of Serena Williams’ résumé versus her opponent’s didn’t matter.

Same as it didn’t save Williams in four of her past five grand slam losses.

This time, Williams’ tormentor was not her Australian Open conqueror Angelique Kerber, or Spanish upstart Garbine Muguruza, who surprised her in this year’s French Open final. It was not a wily veteran like Roberta Vinci, who derailed Williams’ run at a calendar-year grand slam a year ago.

Thursday night Williams had a winor-go-home tiebreaker against 24-yearold Karolina Pliskova, a 10th-seeded Czech. Williams had to survive against the most prolific ace machine on tour while playing with an aching left knee. But it ended ingloriously with a double fault to seal Pliskova’s 6-2 7-6 (5) win.

All the history Williams was chasing — a tie with Chris Evert for a record seven US Open titles, a chance to break her tie with Steffi Graf at 22 majors, most in the Open era — was put off for another day. When Williams wakes up tomorrow morning, she also won’t be No 1 (Kerber will), leaving Williams in a tie with Graf for most consecutive weeks in the top spot, with 186.

Players still deeply respect Williams. But she doesn’t strike the fear into her opponents that she used to. And Muguruza had no problem saying that after her French Open title win, telling reporters that players are seeing that Williams is more “beatable” now.

Pliskova played like one of the new believers. Williams is thought to have the greatest serve in the history of the game, but Pliskova’s serve and return games were both better than Serena’s.

And the thing is, Pliskova had never even been past the third round of a grand slam and became only the fourth player to beat both Williams sisters at the same slam, joining Martina Hingis, Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin.

Williams has been so extraordinary for so long, any wobble in her play seems like a seismic event. But she has now had four such upsets in her past five slams. She isn’t just blowing these matches; her rivals are going out and taking them.

Williams has dug herself out of too many trenches before in her majestic 22-year career to rush to any big conclusions that this is the beginning of her end as the game’s greatest player. But it has been happening for a year now. And it’s only natural to wonder. — espn.com