Venus loses in Open semis

Associated Press

NEW YORK

After trailing for much of the third set, Venus Williams suddenly was right back in the thick of her U.S. Open semifinal against Kim Clijsters, serving at 4-all, 30-all.

At that moment Friday night, it didn’t appear to matter that the 30-year-old Williams was bidding to become the oldest woman to win a Grand Slam title in two decades. Or that she arrived at Flushing Meadows coming off a left knee injury that meant she hadn’t played a match in more than two months.

Then came two pivotal points. First, Williams double-faulted for the seventh time, giving Clijsters a break point. Next, Clijsters curled a perfect backhand lob over the 6-foot-1 Williams to go ahead 5-4.

Williams stopped chasing and watched the ball fall, then hung her head. And that, basically, was that. Defending champion Clijsters held on, winning 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-4 to extend her U.S. Open winning streak to 20 matches and return to the final.

“I just wish,” Williams said, “I could have played the bigger points a little better.”

She is 52-2 after taking the first set at the U.S. Open — and both of those losses came against Clijsters, who will face No. 7-seeded Vera Zvonareva of Russia in tonight’s final. If Clijsters wins the championship, she will be the first woman with two consecutive U.S. Open titles since Williams in 2000-01.

“Obviously, this is what you try to achieve,” said the second-seeded Clijsters, also the 2005 U.S. Open champion. “I never expected I’d come back in this position. I was trying to do it. It wasn’t easy, but I stuck with it.”

Zvonareva reached her second Grand Slam final in a row by upsetting top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark 6-4, 6-3.

After losing in the Wimbledon quarterfinals June 29, Williams skipped hard-court tuneup events in August because of a sprained left kneecap. But she didn’t drop a set in New York until Friday against Clijsters, who has won their past five matches to take a 13-12 head-to-head lead.

That includes victories over Williams each of the two times Clijsters won a Grand Slam title — at the 2005 and 2009 U.S. Opens. In the 2005 quarterfinals, Clijsters lost the first set before winning in three.

Summed up Williams: “I wasn’t able to play as well as I wanted. I had too many errors.”

Clijsters missed the 2006 U.S. Open because of a series of health problems, including wrist surgery, then skipped the next two because she was taking time off to get married and have a baby.