Mixed Results for Williams Sisters in Flushing

Karolina Pliskova played an excellent tie-breaker after coughing up a chance to serve out the match to complete her comeback over America Venus Williams at the 2016 U.S. Open, reaching her first major quarterfinal with a 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(3) triumph on Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday afternoon.

This match was all Venus to start as the two-time champion broke for 3-1 and 5-1 leads to seize control of the opening set. But Pliskova would break Venus twice while the American was serving for the set, and although Venus would respond with a break at 5-4 to close it out, the 10th-seeded Czech seemed to extract some confidence from her mid-set comeback and carried it into the second set.

“She started pretty well. She's so aggressive, if she's playing her game, you don't have any chance to do anything,” said Pliskova, who came into the U.S. Open off of her title at the Premier 5 title at the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati. “She's returning well and serves well. She can serve four aces in one game. There's not much you can do about this. But like I said, I tried to stay in the game. I got my chances in the first set.”

So even when Venus broke for a 3-1 lead in the second set, Pliskova didn’t budge. She broke back immediately and then again for a 4-3 lead, holding serve the rest of the way to win the second set and force a deciding third.

The third set was a back and forth clash, which turned the match into one of the best of the tournament. Pliskova first broke for 2-1, but Venus brought the match back on serve by breaking to 15 to even the final set at four games all.

The set remained on serve until 5-5, when Pliskova ripped a forehand winner to break Venus yet again and set up a chance to serve for the match. The WTA’s leader in aces this year hit one in route to taking a 40-0 lead in her ensuing service game to bring up three match points, but Venus  saved them all, winning five straight points to break back and force a third set tiebreaker.

“It was an unlucky game because I wanted to risk the second serve when I was up 40-Love … was a bad miss, double-fault. Then she made five winners in a row. I didn't do many bad things. I didn't serve first serve. That was a mistake. But, she played everything great at that time,” said Pliskova. “I was obviously a little bit down after this game because I was so close. I believed I could close it in the last game for 7-5. But then I had to stay in the game because there was last tie-break in front of me. I couldn't be just mad that I didn't make it because I still had a chance to win the tie-break.”

Pliskova did just that, playing an excellent tie-break to win seven of the 10 points and complete the comeback, continuing the best Grand Slam run of her career.

“I think she started returning serve really well as the match progressed. She lifted her game. Definitely a lot of credit to her for hanging in there and staying positive,” said Venus. “I think she definitely made adjustments. That's what you have to do. That's why she's at the top.”

Pliskova moves on to play the winner of tonight’s match between the fourth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland and Croatian teenager Ana Konjuh.

Immediately following Venus’ defeat, her younger sister Serena Williams pitched a routine performance to defeat Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova 6-2, 6-3 in just one hour and eight minutes.

The world number one was all business to break Shvedova in her first service game of the match and consolidated with a hold to build a quick 3-0 lead. The six-time champion broke one more time to wrap up the opening set 6-2.

There were no points coming to Shvedova off of Serena’s serve all-match long. She won 78 percent of the points serves and never faced a break point. So when a couple of errors from Shvedova opened up a door for a break to push her second set lead to 4-2, Serena converted it, snatching the only break she needed and  going on to close it out three games later.

Up next for Serena is fifth-seeded Simona Halep, who earlier in the day moved on with a 6-2, 7-5 win over the 11th-seeded Carla Suarez-Navarro.