TENNIS – Serena Williams beat Maria Sharapova 6-4 6-3 in the first semifinal to reach her ninth final in Miami. Serena scored her 15th win in a row over Maria improving her record in their head-to-head matches to 16-2. Williams has not lost against Sharapova since 2002. Diego Sampaolo
Williams reached the semifinal after knocking out Angelique Kerber, Coco Vandeweghe, Caroline Garcia and Yaroslava Shvedova, Sharapova was pushed to the third set by Kirsten Flipkens and Lucie Safarova but showed good form when she beat Petra Kvitova in the quarter final.
In the re-match of last year’s Miami final won by Serena in three sets with 4-6 6-3 6-0, Sharapova played her best match of the year. Williams created a break point chance but Sharapova held serve for 1-0. Serena earned two break points in the third game but Sharapova managed to hold serve before breaking serve in the following game for 3-1. She continued to pull away to increase her lead to 4-1. Williams clawed her way back to break serve and drew level to 4-all when she saved the break-back chance in the eighth game. Williams broke serve to go up 5-4 before closing out the first set in the following game against a great Sharapova who played a superb first set.
Sharapova went up 2-0 but she committed a costly double fault as she was close to 3-0 allowing Serena to claw her way back to 1-2 before drawing level to 2-all. Williams broke serve to love to edge the Russian player to 4-3. Williams made three errors from 40-0 but she recovered firing her eighth ace to build a 5-3 lead. Maria made her fifth double fault.
Serena closed out the second set on the match point as Maria sent her forehand into the net.
Williams hit 21 winners to 22 unforced errors. She fired eight aces and made two double faults. Sharapova hit 15 winners to 29 unforced errors and made five double faults. Serve was the decisive factor in this match.
“It wasn’t easy. Maria has done really well today. I just decided I had to do a little better, stay focused and make more shots”, said Williams.
Serena has reached her ninth final in Miami. There are no other tournaments where she played so many finals during her career. She appeared in seven finals at both Wimbledon and the US Open. She won six Miami titles in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008 and 2013 and lost in 1999 against her sister Venus and in 2009 against Vika Azarenka.
“That’s pretty awesome. I didn’t even realize this stat”, said Serena
