Serena Williams survived a scare from giant-killer Kaia Kanepi to claim a rollercoaster 6-0 4-6 6-3 win on Sunday and move into the US Open quarter-finals, a step closer to a record- equalling 24th career Grand Slam title.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like just getting through it in general was all I\u2019m looking at now and not looking back and just moving towards the next match,\u201d offered a relieved Williams, safely through to the last eight at Flushing Meadows for a 15th time.<\/p>\n
Following a shock upset of world number one Simona Halep in the first round, the 44th-ranked Kanepi had looked a potential trouble spot for the six-times US Open champion.<\/p>\n
Any tension inside a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium, however, was quickly eased as a ruthless Williams stormed through the opening set in 18 minutes for the loss of a measly six points.<\/p>\n
It was about as perfect a start anyone could have to match Williams, who was guilty of just two unforced errors while firing 14 winners and converting all three break chances.<\/p>\n
But in a bizarre momentum shift, fans suddenly found themselves on the edge of their seats as the Estonian opened the second with a break. The pressure continued to mount as Kanepi, who had not strung together three consecutive tour-level match wins since her quarter-final run at last year\u2019s US Open, broke Williams again to go up 5-2 before holding off a late rally from the 17th seed to level the match.<\/p>\n
Just as quickly as the momentum swung to Kanepi, it returned to Williams in the third set as the 36-year-old American broke her opponent at the first opportunity and jumped out to a 3-0 lead before cruising to victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy, obviously, I think one thing she did well was change her strategy and started doing just a completely different game and gave me a different look to her game,\u201d explained Williams, who laid down 18 aces.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not tough, but I feel like I made one or two crucial errors and that cost me the second set, or at least cost me the first game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t like my level went down tremendously. It was one or two points that made a huge difference in that second set.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next up for Williams is a quarter-final meeting with eighth seeded Czech Karolina Pliskova who advanced with a straight-forward 6-4 6-4 win over 18th seed Ashleigh Barty of Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Serena Williams survived a scare from giant-killer Kaia Kanepi to claim a rollercoaster 6-0 4-6 6-3 win on Sunday and move into the US Open quarter-finals, a step closer to a record- equalling 24th career Grand Slam title. \u201cI feel like just getting through it in general was all I\u2019m looking at now and not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122,315],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41089,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41087\/revisions\/41089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}