{"id":4136,"date":"2013-09-06T23:06:33","date_gmt":"2013-09-06T23:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/?p=4136"},"modified":"2015-09-20T02:04:20","modified_gmt":"2015-09-20T06:04:20","slug":"rematch-williams-azarenka-prevail-in-semi-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/news\/wta-tennis\/rematch-williams-azarenka-prevail-in-semi-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"Rematch: Williams – Azarenka Prevail in Semifinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

There were a lot of nerves on display in today’s women’s semifinals…and Serena Williams played, too.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[divider]<\/p>\n

Victoria Azarenka and Serena Williams got through their semifinal matches today to set up the anticipated (and generally hoped-for) final, a rematch of last year’s, in which Williams prevailed.<\/p>\n

Azarenka played the Italian veteran Flavia Pennetta, who is coming back from a serious wrist injury and reaching her first Grand Slam semifinal. \u00a0It was a nervy affair, featuring 13 breaks of serve in 18 games. \u00a0It started with 5 service breaks at a trot until Azarenka finally held. \u00a0Pennetta tried to hang with the Belorussian, staving off 5 set points in the first set before Azarenka closed it out, but overall Azarenka’s powerful game was too much for Pennetta. \u00a0Azarenka prevailed in the end, 6-4, 6-2.<\/p>\n

[divider]<\/p>\n

Click here to discuss the Serena Williams\/Li Na semifinal in our discussion forum.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to discuss the Victoria Azarenka\/Flavia Pennetta semifinal in our discussion forum.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

[divider]<\/p>\n

Williams beat Li Na of China, who battled both her nerves and a confident Serena, who is currently on a\u00a024-match winning streak. It wasn’t until the second set that Li Na\u00a0even won a game. \u00a0A letdown from Williams helped Li break for 2-1 in the second, to get her first lead in the match, and her legs back under her. \u00a0After that, she played more like the player that reached the semifinals, but Serena recovered and broke back in the next game. \u00a0Serving at 2-5, Li played an astonishingly gutsy game, saving 6 match points before finally holding for 3-5 in a nearly 14-minute game. \u00a0She then managed to get it to 30-all on Serena’s serve before the American closed it out on her 7th match point. \u00a0Williams won 6-0, 6-2 and has yet to drop a set in the tournament.<\/p>\n

Later Friday evening, Serena and Venus Williams lost in the doubles semifinals to the Czech Republic team of Andrea Hlavackova and\u00a0Lucie Hradecka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There were a lot of nerves on display in today’s women’s semifinals…and Serena Williams played, too. [divider] Victoria Azarenka and Serena Williams got through their semifinal matches today to set up the anticipated (and generally hoped-for) final, a rematch of last year’s, in which Williams prevailed. Azarenka played the Italian veteran Flavia Pennetta, who is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[358,82,125,287,138],"class_list":["post-4136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wta-tennis","tag-flavia-pennetta","tag-li-na","tag-serena-williams","tag-us-open","tag-victoria-azarenka"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}