DAVID BIANCULLI

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U.S. OPEN TENNIS WOMEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP
September 12, 2015  | By David Bianculli

ESPN, 3:00 p.m. ET

 

Wow. In yesterday’s women’s semifinals, which took place Friday because they’d been postponed by rain Thursday, the tournament’s No. 26 seed, Flavia Pennetta of Italy, knocked out the No. 2 seed, Simona Halep, in straight sets, at one point winning 15 straight points. What a shocker. Then came the next match, in which another Italian player, the unseeded Roberta Vinci, faced Serena Williams, who needed only that match and the final to complete her Grand Slam. Vinci lost the first set, but won the second – and, in an increasingly intense showdown, the third, to win the match and experience, as Vinci said afterward, “the greatest day of my life.” This makes for, on very little rest for either victor, the first all-Italy major final in tennis history, with Vinci, 32, and Pennetta, 33, taking the court for what, clearly, is the game of their lives. It’ll be fun tennis to watch, but you have to remember – or forget – that the winner of the U.S. Open women’s championship this year will not be one of her sport’s Top 20 players.

 
 
 
 
 
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