US OPEN 2011: Women's Semifinals Preview

by Mad Professah, contributing writer

After a rain delay cancelled the scheduled women's quarterfinals matches last night, all four matches were able to be completed today, the women's semifinals are now set.

This year, I correctly predicted 2 of 4 women's quarterfinals. Last year I correctly predicted 2 of 2 women's semifinals and 4 of 4 women's quarterfinals.

These are my predictions for the 2011 women's semifinals, which for the first time will be played Saturday night in prime time, with the women's final on Sunday, and the men's final moved to Monday's day session.

Caroline Wozniacki DEN (1) v. Serena Williams USA (28). This is the match on the women's side everyone has been waiting for. Can the putative #1 player in the world prove her dominance against the fan's #1? As the #28 seed Serena has munched through "higher seeded players" Victoria Azarenka (#4), Ana Ivanovic (#16), and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (#17) in the last three rounds. As the #1 seed Wozniacki has dispatched Andrea Petkovic (#10), Svetlana Kuznesova (#15) and unseeded Vania King in the same rounds. Serena and Caroline have met on court twice in their careers (both in 2009), with Serena winning both times.
Wozniacki has only been to one major final, while Serena has won 13 finals and appeared in 3 others, losing to her sister Venus Williams twice (2001 US Open and 2008 Wimbledon) and Maria Sharapova once (2004 Wimbledon). The problem that Wozniacki has is that many people feel that she can be hit off the court. Her game is built around counter-punching, and she (often) plays her best tennis when she is behind in the score. But getting behind on the score against someone as mentally tough as Serena Williams is not the same thing as getting behind the score against 2004 US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova. It does show that Wozniacki likes pace and can feed off her opponent's power and use it against them. There is no more powerful a female player than Serena, and she will demonstrate the danger of Wozniacki's strategy to blast past her and reach her fifth US Open final. PREDICTION: Serena.


Angelique Kerber GER v. Samantha Stosur AUS (9). Although I didn't pick either one of these players to reach this point in the tournament, I am delighted to see that Samantha Stosur is in her second major semifinal, with an excellent opportunity to reach her second major final, where hopefully she can acquit herself better than she did in the 2010 Roland Garros final. 

Kerber is the only unseeded player among the semifinalists and since she's ranked around 92 in the world will make more money from this tournament than she made in the last year (or two) on the tour. In other words, Kerber is just happy to be here and will not put up much resistance if the match gets tough. The rap against Stosur is that she's mentally fragile, and the fact that she has played 11 tournament finals and only won 2 of them is evidence of that. However, she impressed a lot of people with her mental fortitude in her match against Maria Kirilenko when she lost the second set 15-17 in the longest women's tiebreaker in grand slam history (blowing 5 match points in the process). Stosur was able to survive the emotional rollercoaster of playing such an intense tiebreaker (where twice she was denied match point wins due to Kirilenko's successful electronic line challenges) to win the deciding set relatively easily 6-3. This new toughness should serve the hard-hitting Australian well in the final on Sunday night. PREDICTION: Stosur.