[[With a grim weather forecast on tap today, I thought it especially useful to publish this US Open semifinals preview by one of our resident WTA experts, Bobby Chintapalli. She was in New York over the weekend and joined us at our Telephone Bar gathering. I was a little bummed that Bobby didn't bring along her mom, who lives in New Orleans, so I could work on her to make me her wicked good Indian Gumbo. This ought to give you plenty to talk about on what's shaping up as a dismal day -- Pete]]
You could say you saw this coming, but probably you’d be lying. The US Open women’s semifinals haven’t turned out the way anyone expected.
!90446349 Of course the more things change, the more there’s still Serena. She’s gotten to the semis in style, and not just because of her hilarious (if sometimes misspelled) t-shirts, or those huge loop earrings that always fall off. She’s played terrific tennis, and the numbers tell the tale.
Over the five matches played Serena’s the only semifinalist with a positive winner-to-unforced error differential (122 winners to 77 UFEs). Then of course there’s her serving. At a tournament during which the New York Times took it upon itself to place an article about women’s serving woes on its front page (clearly tossing troubles are as important as American healthcare reform), Serena stayed true to her t-shirt by “serving up some hot damn”.
Serena has the fewest double faults of the four semifinalists and the most aces (31). In fact, she has exactly as many aces as the other three semifinalists – combined. While Serena made it to the semis without the usual early-round wackiness on court (remember Klara Zakopalova?), she didn’t forego the post-match silliness off court. There were the sales pitches and some interesting observations, including this one about her next opponent, Kim Clijsters: “Seems like she's even faster than before. I was thinking that maybe I should have a baby and then I'll come back faster.”
!90534684 Danish teenager Caroline Wozniacki is the youngest semifinalist and the youngest player in the top 10. She beat Melanie Oudin without much trouble or, interestingly, much celebration. Watching her in doubles you’d think she was sucking on laughing gas during changeovers, but there wasn’t much laughter during her match against Oudin. Wozniacki was only too happy to beat the American darling, but also very careful to placate the American crowd. When a ball she hit struck the netcord and rolled onto Oudin’s side to give Wozniacki a close game in the second set, she apologized - twice.
Wozniacki has never gotten past the fourth round at a major, but she’ll be the clear favorite against Wickmayer. Her numbers demonstrate that unforced errors aren’t a problem. She’s the semifinalist with the least damaging unforced error count (with 24 per cent, she just barely noses out Serena, who's at 25 percent). The problem is that Wozniacki also has the lowest percentage of winners, with 14 percent. (Serena has a whopping 40 percent).
YANINA WICKMAYER
!90507404 Huh? If that's your initial responses upon reading that name, even though you describe yourself as a tennis nut, fret not. She came out of the blue and now, wearing nothing but blue (check out her interesting shirt and shorts combo), she’s in the semifinals alongside the woman that her WTA bio says she most admires. You guessed it – Kim Clijsters. Speaking of the bio, Wickmayer will need to update it. It says her goal is to reach the top 50. Her current ranking? Right again – No. 50.
She may be relatively unknown, but her next opponent, Wozniacki, is taking her seriously. “I don't take her for granted at all,” she said. “She's played great tennis to make it this far. You don't make a Grand Slam semifinals without playing great tennis.”
PREDICTION
It will be fun to see who makes the final from the top half of the draw, but does it really matter whether it’s Wozniacki or Wickmayer?
The winner of this tournament will come from the bottom half, and it will be Serena. Her match against Clijsters could be close and should be good, but Serena’s just playing too well now – and she's got street cred via her head-to-head (She leads, 7-1). Now more than ever it’s Serena’s tournament to lose; it may sound like a cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Sure, something unforeseen could happen: Maybe Serena will get stuck in traffic again - or forget to show up because she has to respond to some fun tweets, ASAP.
Serena will win her 12th Grand Slam title, because she’s serving better than everyone, hitting more winners and making fewer unforced errors. But most especially, because she’s Serena Williams. Enough said. Find a way to put that on a t-shirt, Nike.