Venus battles past Stosur to advance into Cincy SFs, Li Na demolishes Top seed Radwanska

First on court in Friday afternoon’s session of the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati was Venus Williams, unseeded in this tournament and ranked 64 on the WTA’s rankings list. Across the net was 3rd seeded Sam Stosur, last year’s US Open titlist, who is the WTA’s 6^th ranked player. Venus had to dig deep on her way to a 6-2  6-7 (2)  6-4 victory that secured her a semifinal spot.

Venus was in imperious form in the first set, with great stats for every part of her powerful game; and took it 6-2. The second set was a different story, with Stosur coming out fighting and, having raised her game, went into a 2-0 lead. Venus broke back to 2-2 and, from then on, the two stayed together with some of the best tennis of the week being played. Both players’ serves were firing and their ground shots were a feast to behold. This great play eventually led to a tiebreak, where Stosur ran out an easy winner, taking it 7-2, with the set having taken 61 minutes. The final set was an equally close run affair, with Venus finally managing to break the Australian for a 5-4 lead just before serving it out to take the match after two and a half hours.

The jubilant Venus will play her first semi final of the year against Li Na, who steamrollered her way past Agnieszka Radwanska 6-1 6-1 in the evening session.

 

Tags Sam Stosur venus williams WTA Cincinnati