On Williams’ second serve of her quarterfinal, she was called for a foot fault — an unpleasant reminder of her meltdown after that very same ruling in the closing moments of a loss to Kim Clijsters in the 2009 U.S. Open semifinals.
This time, Williams was unfazed right afterward and wound up winning the point. But miscues by Williams led to an opening break, and after about 10 minutes of play, Pennetta — a semifinalist in New York last year, but never a major finalist — was ahead 3-0.
Williams began taking the ball inside the baseline as much as possible and finding the mark with her serves, putting more pressure on Pennetta while reeling off six straight games to take the first set.
Pennetta, who is into the doubles semifinals with partner Martina Hingis, might have been forgiven for giving up at that point. But she made things competitive again — at least briefly.
Four aces in one game allowed her to lead 2-1 in the second set. That was pretty much that. Williams broke at love to go up 3-2, raising her left fist overhead to celebrate one particularly impressive shot, in which she raced back to the baseline to retrieve a lob, spun and smacked a forehand winner.
Williams has not had a particularly difficult path so far through an upset-filled women’s field.
She hasn’t dropped a set, but she also has not had to face No. 3 Petra Kvitova, No. 7 Eugenie Bouchard, No. 8 Ana Ivanovic, No. 16 Azarenka or No. 24 Sam Stosur — the last player to beat Williams at the U.S. Open, in the 2011 final.
All were on Williams’ half of the draw, and all lost to others.
Azarenka said she wasn’t able to practice Tuesday because of food poisoning. But she did not want to talk about how that might have affected her against Makarova.
“You can ask me 20 times the same question. I’m not going to make any excuses today,” Azarenka said, shaking her head. “As I said, I did the best I could today. I want to give full credit to my opponent. She deserves to win. She played much better than me today. That’s it.”
Like BlackAmericaWeb.com on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
