Maria Sakkari reached her second Grand Slam semifinal this season with a 6-4 6-4 victory over Karolina Pliskova at the US Open.
The 17th-seeded Sakkari had survived being two points from defeat against 2019 champion Bianca Andreescu in the previous round and backed that win up on Wednesday with a confident performance against the 2016 US Open finalist Pliskova.
Making the most of her serve, Sakkari never faced a break point against the fourth-seeded Czech during the quarterfinal that lasted one hour and 22 minutes. The Greek’s stats are impressive: she lost just two points on her first serve (winning 24 of 26) and during one stretch she won 22 consecutive service points.
Sakkari is the first Greek woman in US Open singles semifinals. Her next opponent will be teen qualifier Emma Raducanu, the first British woman to reach this stage since Jo Durie in 1983.
The other semifinal will be contested between 19-year-old Leylah Fernandez of Canada and second seed Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus.
