Serena survives Wozniacki, first into Rogers Cup semifinals

To an inexperienced tennis fan, initially it may have seemed that eleventh seed Caroline Wozniacki would quickly take out uninspired world No.1 Serena Williams, but the American stole the momentum midway through the second set and toiled her way to the Rogers Cup semifinals.

Conversion of one and only break point Wozniacki earned in the first set, in the fifth game, turned out to be enough for her to straightforwardly take the set. It may seem strange, but Wozniacki wasn’t broken once in the set and actually Williams earned just two break points, while trailing 4-5.

The story didn’t change early in the second set, as Wozniacki soon ran to a 4-2 lead, but the momentum shifted at that moment and after leveling to 4-4, Serena soon found herself at 5-4, leading for the first time in the match, and not long afterwards the set was hers, 7-5.

The third set was the most tightly contested and the two times Williams broke Wozniacki’s serve, the Dane fought right back. But despite Williams wasting two match points while leading 6-5 40-15, Wozniacki was too weak to turn the result around and the leopard-clad Williams broke her for the third time in the set to record a 4-6 7-5 7-5 victory.

Next quarterfinals on the schedule, in the following order: Carla Suarez Navarro vs. Venus Williams, Coco Vandeweghe vs. Ekaterina Makarova, Victoria Azarenka vs. Agnieszka Radwanska.

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