Serena broke back to level at 5-5 in the first set but double faulted four times in the 11th game before holding, then fell behind 4-0 in the tie-break before rallying largely on Bertens’ unforced errors. PHOTO: AFP
Serena, trying to complete the first Calendar Grand Slam singles sweep since Steffi Graf in 1988, defeated 110th-ranked Dutch qualifier Kiki Bertens 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 at Arthur Ashe Stadium despite 34 unforced errors and 10 double faults.
“I just kept fighting for each point, not for a lot but just one at a time,” said Serena. “I had been pretty relaxed. Today I was a little tight. I think it showed. Hopefully I can get back to where I was before.”
The 33-year-old American, trying to match Graf’s Open Era record of 22 career Grand Slam singles titles and win an Open Era-record seventh US Open crown, improved to 50-2 on the year with her 30th Grand Slam match win in a row and sustained her march toward history.
Spanish eighth seed Nadal, a 14-time Grand Slam champion, ousted Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman 7-6 (7/5), 6-3, 7-5, for his 750th career tour-level match triumph, while top-ranked Djokovic stayed on a last-eight collision course with Nadal by dispatching Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer 6-4, 6-1, 6-2.
Canadian 10th seed Milos Raonic fired 18 aces in dispatching Spain’s Fernando Verdasco 6-2, 6-4, 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (7/1).
Defending champion Marin Cilic fired 19 aces in defeating 139th-ranked Russian qualifier Evgeny Donskoy 6-2, 6-3, 7-5, while seventh seed David Ferrer downed 102nd-ranked Serb Filip Krajinovic 7-5, 7-5, 7-6 (7/4).
Aisam enters second round at US Open
Aisamul Haq Qureshi — the lone Pakistan player at the ATP tour — won his opening men’s doubles match at the US Open along with Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller on Thursday.
The duo defeated Serbs Dusan Lajovic and Viktor Troicki 6-2, 6-3 on Court 16 of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City.
They outplayed Lajovic and Troicki’s in just 57 minutes with the help of four aces and a total of 59 points won compared to the Serbs’ 34.
Aisam is the only Pakistani to reach the finals of a Grand Slam — a feat he achieved at the 2010 US Open men’s doubles and mixed doubles events.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 4th, 2015.
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