Serena Williams (photo ©Emmett Anderson) reached the final defeating Francesca Schiavone, Galina Voskoboeva, Yaroslava Shvedova, Sloane Stephens, Carla Suarez Navarro and Na Li. So far she lost no sets. She’s the U.S. Open defending champion and at her third consecutive final in this tournament.

Victoria Azarenka reached the final defeating Dinah Pfizenmaier, Aleksandra Wozniak, Alize Cornet, Ana Ivanovic, Daniela Hantuchova and Flavia Pennetta. So far she has lost two sets: one in the third round to Cornet and one in the fourth round to Ivanovic. She’s at her second consecutive final at the U.S. Open.

The beginning of the match is complicated not only for the tension but also because there’s a quite strong wind so both players struggle to find the right measure of theit shots. Victoria Azarenka loses her service in the first game but Serena Williams loses it too in the next game. It takes a few games before the level of the match goes up but gradually the two finalists limit their errors. The tenth game is the most fought and lasts almost ten minutes but the American tries to be more aggressive, wins her service game and in the next game breaks the Belarusian. In the twelfth game Williams serves for the first set and wins it 7-5.

In the second set Serena Williams seems to have found the right recipe to gain an advantage over Victoria Azarenka also due to her aggressiveness and in the first game she breaks her opponent. The Belarusian tries to fight back and in the fourth game she has two break points but the American manages to win her service game and in the next game she breaks her opponent’s service again, also taking advantage of three double faults. The match seems over but Azarenka tries again and in the sixth game she breaks Williams. The American can still serve for the match in the tenth game but loses her service game again. At 5-5, Williams breaks the Belarusian another time, serves for the match again but still loses her service game with a double fault on the break point. The set is decided by the tie -break, where Williams goes ahead 3-1, Azarenka comes back and goes on 3-3, the Belarusian takes another lead on 6-4 but can’t take advantage of 3 set points, has another set point at 7-6 and eventually wins the tie-break 8-6 and the second set.

In the third set Victoria Azarenka seems to have more energy but fails to take a lead. Serena Williams remains calm and in the fourth game she breaks her opponent. The Belarusian tries to fight back but the American seems to have found the right measure of her shots and in the sixth game she breaks her opponent again. In the seventh game, Williams serves for the match again and this time she does it all well and wins the set 6-1 conquering the match and her fifth title at the U.S. Open.

This final was a bit peculiar, great just at times mainly because of the wind. It was still full of emotion at least for the balance that there was in the first two sets, thanks to the fact that Victoria Azarenka recovered a situation that seemed almost impossible.

Victoria Azarenka had the strength to believe in the second set when the other Serena Williams’s opponents generally give up fighting. The third set’s score is too harsh for her, since she still fought to the end just like she did last year. Eventually, however, for her there was another defeat to her American rival.

Serena Williams won her 17th Grand Slam title. In this edition of the U.S. Open until the final she had easy matches and perhaps for this reason she lost the habit to fight and couldn’t close the match in the second set when her opponent kept on fighting instead of giving up. In the end, even in a day when she struggled to find the measure of her shots and has been in a really awkward situation at the beginning of the third set, she won the match with a third set in which she managed to fully exploit her superiority. That’s no coincidence.

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