Serena Williams defeated Karolina Pliskova at US Open

The Czech, playing in her third straight US Open quarter-final, applied some pressure with a backhand victor, Serena sent a down the line victor wide, double-faulted and succumbed on the third break point chance.

For all of six minutes.

Serena Williams fought back from a break down in the first set to beat Czech eighth seed Karolina Pliskova 6-4 6-3 and reach the semi-finals of the U.S. Open in suffocating conditions on Tuesday.

“I’ve been working hard on my volleys”. Even when I did have my break opportunities, I just wasn’t playing the points well at all.

With a win she would break out of a tie with Chris Evert for most US Open titles, and equal Margaret Court’s all-time record for Grand Slams. Williams already owns the mark for the most in the half-century professional era; Court won some of hers against amateur competition.

The 36-year-old, though, quickly found her groove.

Keys, runner-up to Stephens past year, returned to the last four with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro.

She added, “Every match really means a lot to me”. On Tuesday night, she took out world No. 8 Karolina Pliskova. They would exchange another pair of breaks before Sevastova closed out the win on her third match point. At her second major back, Wimbledon, she was the runner-up.

“It’s honestly really incredible. I said that 10 years ago”, she said. If I could have just had one more match before I played a Top-10 player, I think I would have done better.

And for the first time since 2006, the host country can have a man there, too.

And after claiming the final two games in the first, she continued in a similar vein in the second, breaking Pliskova to 0 in the second game and moving 4-0 up.

And there were plenty of those.

Sevastova will face the victor of Tuesday’s Serena Williams vs.

On the previous three such occasions, he’d lost.

“The second set, she was just mixing the serve”. Then she started feeling better.

The 20-year-old Osaka made a statement of intent by trouncing Lesia Tsurenko 6-1 6-1 in the quarter-finals, and will be out for revenge against Keys, who beat the Japanese at Flushing Meadows in 2016. “Not much that I could do on the break points”.

Earlier, American Sloane Stephens was unable to defend the title of champion of the US Open. She kept looking up her coach, as if seeking solutions.

Williams won 24 of the 28 points when she went to the net.

Gauff’s father, Corey, played basketball at Georgia State and her mother, Candi, ran track at Florida State. For Williams her service game wasn’t so easy with Pliskova getting into her element ready to brake Williams again.

The 13th-seeded pair of CoCo Vandeweghe and Ashleigh Barty upset the top-seeded duo of Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova 6-4, 7-6 (6) to reach the U.S. Open women’s doubles final. The American would be smart to get her on the move and exploit it. She hits a good ball.

“Mom, I did it”. “I don’t think there’s any change with her game”. Up in the stands, her mother put two thumbs up and applauded. “She’s not going to give you anything”.