Clijsters outlasts tired Venus
NEW YORK – Acrobatics and dogged effort trumped artistry as Kim Clijsters, two games from losing in straight sets, scrambled back to beat an exhausted Venus Williams and reach the U.S. Open semifinals.
Clijsters, trying to shed her label as the best woman on tour never to win a Grand Slam title, performed more than a dozen of her patented leg splits chasing balls Tuesday night to take down Williams 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.
Waiting for the Belgian in the semis Friday will be top-seeded Maria Sharapova, who yielded a set for the first time in the tournament before beating fellow Russian Nadia Petrova, the ninth seed, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.
“I wasn’t really thinking about the score,” said Clijsters, who trailed 4-6, 2-4 with Williams serving in the second set. “I just tried to keep fighting and just kept running for each ball.”
Sharapova won her first four matches in an average of 59 minutes. Against Petrova, each of the first two sets took almost as long, and the match ran 2 1/2 hours before Sharapova, shrieking on nearly every point, ended it with a break in the final game on a lunging backhand return that Petrova couldn’t handle.
“Wow! It’s absolutely amazing, I can’t believe I pulled this match out today,” said Sharapova, who lost in the third round last year and the second round in her first U.S. Open two years ago. “So many ups and downs. … I just found a way to fight. A lot of credit to Nadia, she played an amazing match.”
Roger Federer sneered, tossed his racket in disgust. Horror of horrors, he, too, lost a set.
For most of the U.S. Open, the defending champion and top seed had seemed to sleepwalk through his matches, playing only as well as necessary, waking up and painting lines when pressed.
That was, until he got into a little trouble against Nicolas Kiefer. Suddenly Federer had a reason to elevate his game and stir some emotion. Now he swept in toward the net, pounded winners from the baseline, stopped wasting time and effort.
Under just the hint of pressure, Federer produced his best tennis of the tournament to beat Kiefer 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-4 and land safely in the quarterfinals. Match point was a masterful final stroke – an inside-out forehand crosscourt that Federer tucked neatly in the corner.
Lleyton Hewitt, the 2001 champion and runner-up to Federer last year, reached the quarters for the sixth straight year with a 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 win over No. 15 Dominik Hrbaty, who drew more attention for his pink peekaboo shirt than his play.
“It made it a lot easier for me to beat him today,” Hewitt said. “I just couldn’t lose to a bloke wearing a shirt like that.”
Hewitt advanced to play Jarkko Nieminen, who became the first Finn to reach the quarters in a Grand Slam event with a 6-2, 7-6 (6), 6-3 victory over Spain’s Fernando Verdasco.
Federer next plays 11th-seeded David Nalbandian of Argentina, a 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-4, 6-2 victor over Italian Davide Sanguinetti.