After a curious win, Venus Williams has every chance of making it to the semi-finals – Karolina Pliskova is already in the semi-finals.
By Florian Goosmann from Singapore
Venus Williams summed up the phenomenon of Yelena Ostapenko wonderfully at the end of the three-hour and 13-minute crime thriller in an on-court interview:”All respect for her. She came around the corner with incredible blows. With shots you can’t really prepare for. But that’s exactly why she’s here. Because she has the talent for it. I was just happy to make the last point.”
7:5,6:7 (3), 7:5 at the end after a very strange match. 20 breaks were played, six in a row alone in the third set from 1:1 to 4:4, and then there was almost the seventh when Ostapenko was trailing 0:40, but the game still turned. Williams then broke 6:5 and did something completely unexpected that night: She served up to the victory.
And Williams’ return performance was not even good, too often she dumped the weak second serves of Ostapenko, some of which were only just over 100 km/h fast, into the net. Ostapenko played only 46 percent of her first serve, only 51 percent of which made it to the point, and at the second serve to 40 percent. A total of 23 double errors divided both women.
The statistics for the game are also crazy: Williams beat 26 winners with 29 unforced mistakes, Ostapenko scored 48 winners with “only” 40 unforced mistakes. How so? One reason is probably the unusual style of the Latvian woman who Williams praised so much. Ostapenko shoots out of all positions, then scores a direct point, and if he enters the winner’s statistic; if he pulls it out, he does not appear in the error statistic. For “forced errors” are still not officially listed. With 37 games, Williams and Ostapenko now hold the record for the match with the most games in a WTA final over two sets of wins.
Karolina Pliskova continued in the second match of the day where she left off on Sunday. She won against Garbine Muguruza after only one hour 6:2,6:2 and qualified as the first player and group winner for the semi-finals. Muguruza, who appeared bandaged on the left thigh (“just a precaution”), did not make it into the match at all and will now play against Venus Williams (from 1.30 pm CEST) on Thursday for a chance to progress.
More information will follow!