Serena vs Wozniacki - the real US Open Final?

Two years ago, Serena Williams was the number 1 player in the world and the defending US Open champion. She was expected to defend her title at Flushing Meadows when she run into the inspirational story at that time in the semifinals - Kim Clijsters who was playing in just her third tournament after coming out of retirement. The match was close with Clijsters winning the first set. Then, when Clijsters was two points away from closing the match with Serena serving, Serena was called for a foot fault which resulted in a match point. The scenes that followed after captivated the tennis world. Serena's infamous tirade with a line judge resulted in her losing the match, and the most hefty fine was levied against the American after several weeks of deliberations. Clijsters then beat an up-and-coming young Danish player named Caroline Wozniacki in the finals to win her second US Open title.

Fast forward to the US Open in 2011. Caroline Wozniacki is now the world #1 player, a title that is always raising eyebrows in the tennis world because Wozniacki earned it by playing more tournaments and lifting trophies in the smaller tennis venues around the world. She has won a leading 6 tournaments during this year but she won final matches against lower ranked players. Her biggest title of the year was in Indian Wells when she beat #17 Marion Bartoli. Bartoli is her highest ranked finals opponent. Her other wins included finals matches against #56 Elena Vesnina in Charleston, #40 Petra Cetskova in New Haven, #38 Lucie Safarova in Copenhagen and #31 Shuai Peng in Brussels. Since reaching the finals in the US Open two years ago, she reached the semi-finals last year, and also reached the same stage in this year's Australian Open. As world #1, she failed to make an impact losing in the early rounds at this year's French Open and Wimbledon.

What about Kim Clijsters? She successfully defended her US Open crown in 2010 and after winning her fourth Grand Slam tournament in Melbourne this year, the Belgian has been beset by injuries and has barely played after March. She lost to #114 Arantxa Rus in the second round of the French Open and pulled out of Wimbledon and this year's US Open. She is still ranked #3 in the world but by failing to defend her ranking points from last year, she is expected to go down to #8 in the world. As for Serena - she is in the same comeback trail as Clijsters was two years ago. The American won Wimbledon 2010 for her 13th Grand Slam trophy and did not participate in any other tournament for almost a year dropping out of the Top 100 in the WTA rankings.

She played in this year's Wimbledon reaching the third round but what generated the buzz was her play during the this summer's tournaments. She beat world #5 Maria Sharapova and #9 Marion Bartoli in Stanford to win her first non-Grand Slam title since Charleston in April 2008. She followed that up with another tournament win in Toronto beating world #4 Victoria Azarenka and #11 Samantha Stosur. Her convincing straight-set victories over four top 11 players made her the pre-US Open favorite. She entered the year's final Grand Slam with a 11-match winning streak, and a chance to continue her streak of winning a Grand Slam title every year for the past 5 years.

After five rounds and 124 matches played in the past 2 weeks, only four players remain in the US Open women's singles draw. The first semifinal will pit #9-seed Stosur against this year's tournament surprise - unseeded German Angelique Kerber. The second semifinal will be between Serena and #1 Wozniacki. Stosur is very talented and has certainly the game to be a first time Grand Slam winner like this year's French Open champion Na Li and Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova. She is now more experienced and this is her third time to be in this stage of a Grand Slam after reaching the semifinals in the 2009 French Open and being a finalist in the 2010 French Open. Kerber is just having a ball having never made it past the third round in 15 previous Grand Slams. In fact, she has lost in the first round of the past four grand slams she has participated in. She has come through the quarter of the draw that had the two Wimbledon finalists - #3-seed Maria Sharapova and #5-seed Petra Kvitova.

No matter how much excitement the Stosur-Kerber semifinal will generate, the tennis world is definitely going to focus on the Serena - Wozniacki match. It is the highly anticipated match-up of the tournament after the predicted Serena-Sharapova final didn't materialize. Serena has breezed through the tournament without the loss of a set. She has definitely been challenged in the second set of her third round match with #4-seed Azarenka but she has passed that test with flying colors. Wozniacki on the other hand had to battle through the fourth round to get past former US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, after being down a set and two breaks in the second set. It will be a battle between a 13-time grand slam champion on the comeback trail, who wants to redeem herself in her home tournament after her debacle two years ago, against a world #1 who still lacks the respect from the tennis world.

This semifinal features the drama, history, story-line and excitement of a Grand Slam final - no semifinal has ever been anticipated since perhaps the Serena-Clijsters semifinals two years ago at the US Open. May this match be decided by the quality of tennis and may the better player win. No foot faults please.

Update:

The tennis world got to see world #1 Wozniacki blown off the court by #28 Serena Williams. It wasn't a pretty sight. Wozniacki won just 5 winners in the straight set loss, majority of her total points coming from Serena's unforced errors. It was an anti-climax for a highly anticipated match. After the fact, it looks like the Serena - Stosur final match-up would actually be a more competitive affair.