Cincinnati: Serena Williams was far from perfect but delivered when she had to in a 6-4 6-3 win over Elina Svitolina on Saturday to reach the final of the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati.
The world number one struggled with her serve for a second consecutive match and committed 34 unforced errors but moved one win away from defending her title.
Williams will bid to complete a calendar grand slam at the US Open from August 31, a pursuit that kept her early struggles in perspective on Saturday.
“I wanted to not worry about this match, but worry about the next few matches and next few weeks and start playing better for that,” Williams said in an on-court interview.
“I got off to a super slow start today but I started going for it and I think that helped me out.” The 14th-seeded Svitolina broke Williams’ service early in the opening set, but could not keep the momentum or capitalize on the American’s eight double-faults for the match.
In the second set, two straight backhand winners allowed Williams to break Svitolina’s serve and move to 3-1.
The 20-year-old Ukrainian broke back but Williams responded in kind to take control of the match before sealing it with an ace. She will defend her title against Romanian Simona Halep, who routed Jelena Jankovic 6-1 6-2 in the late semi-final.
The Indo-Swiss tennis combine of Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis lost their women’s doubles semi-final following a three-set defeat here.
The top seeds were upset 4-6, 6-0, 6-10 by the unseeded Chinese Taipei’s sister pair of Hao-Ching Chan and Yung-Jan Chan in an hour and 14 minutes on the outdoor hard courts of the Lindner Family Tennis Center on Saturday.
With the win, the Chan sisters levelled their head-to-head to 1-all, having lost to Sania and Martina in Toronto earlier this year.
In a topsy-turvy first set, service games were broken almost regularly. But the Chan sisters clinched four breakpoints to that of Sania and Martina’s three to take the lead in the match.
The Indo-Swiss combine made a brilliant comeback to win six consecutive games next up and bag the second set. Sania and Martina earned three breakpoint opportunities and converted each to race into the third set.
But when it mattered, the unseeded Chinese Taipei pair came good to win the super tie-break 10-6 and advance to the finals of the tournament, to be played on Sunday.
Indian men’s doubles specialists Rohan Bopanna and Leander Paes lost their respective quarterfinal matches on Friday.
