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Williams Survives And Will Face Upstart For Rogers Cup Title | |
(35 minutes later) | |
TORONTO — Top-ranked Serena Williams reached the final of the Rogers Cup after a tough 7-6 (3), 6-4 victory against fourth-ranked Agnieszka Radwanska on Saturday night. | |
“I was just a little frustrated with myself,” Williams said. “I don’t think I was playing as aggressive as I needed to play. I let her play her game, which is what she wanted to do, but I wasn’t able to play my game as much.” | |
Williams will face 27th-ranked Sorana Cirstea of Romania on Sunday. Williams is seeking her third win at the Canadian tour stop, having won in 2001 and in 2011. | |
Williams, who has not lost a set at this week’s tournament, needed a tiebreaker in the first set against Radwanska and battled through stomach issues between sets. | |
“I feel good,” she said. “I just had a little stomach issue. I’ll be fine. I’m already feeling a lot better.” | |
Radwanska, a 24-year-old from Poland, traded breaks with Williams twice in the first set. Radwanska led, 6-5, but Williams forced a tiebreaker, during which she hammered a cross-court winner for a 6-3 advantage. Williams, 31, then aced set point. | |
“The tiebreak, I just tried to take advantage of my serve as well as her serve and just try to win was many points as I could in the tiebreak,” Williams said. “I don’t think I played my best.” | |
Williams, the tournament’s top seed, fell behind 3-1 in the second set but won five of the next six games en route to victory. She won a 10-minute game, pulling ahead by 5-4, and broke Radwanska, finishing the match in 1 hour 52 minutes. | |
Earlier in the day, Cirstea, 23, continued her strong play at the tournament, upsetting fourth-seeded Li Na, 6-1, 7-6 (5), to advance. | |
Cirstea this week upset the former No. 1 players Jelena Jankovic and Caroline Wozniacki along with the defending tournament champion and sixth seed, Petra Kvitova. | |
“She plays really tough,” Williams said. “She hits really hard. She has a good serve. She moves well, so she’s definitely not an easy player to play. Last few months, she’s been really consistent, and she’s just a player that’s finally found herself." | |
RAONIC WINS ALL-CANADIAN BATTLE Milos Raonic beat his fellow Canadian Vasek Pospisil, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (4), to reach the Rogers Cup final in Montreal. Raonic, Canada’s top-ranked player, will face the winner of the second semifinal between the two-time defending champion Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. | |
Raonic, a 22-year-old from Thornhill, Ontario, will crack the top 10 in the next world rankings after reaching the final of a Masters series event. The last Canadian to win the event was Robert Bedard, who took the last of his three titles in 1958. | |
“They’re all very special, but I think the top-10 one stands out more just because it’s a goal that I set this year,” Raonic said. “It looked a little bit difficult after how I played recently, but to do it here in Montreal is a relief and it’s a happy feeling.” | |
On the final point of the third-set tiebreaker, the 11th-seeded Raonic stretched to get to Pospisil’s shot at the net, forcing his opponent to make a lunging volley that went into the net. | |
“I was winning most of the points from the baseline once the rallies were started,” said Pospisil, a 23-year-old from Vernon, British Columbia. “The tiebreak got away from me a little bit there at the end, a couple of loose points. But I went for it. No regrets. I didn’t want to lose the match playing defensively. I tried to go for it even with the nerves that there were. This time, it didn’t work out, but that’s the right way for me to go.” (AP) | |