US OPEN 2011 – DAY 14

Written by: Staff on 11th September 2011

US OPEN 2011 – DAY 14

Samantha Stosur of Australia hits a return to Angelique Kerber of Germany during their Semifinal round match on the thirteenth day of the 2011 US Open Tennis Championship at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, USA 10 September 2011. The US Open has been extended due to weather for the fourth year in a row and the men's final will now be played on 12 September 2011. EPA/JOHN G. MABANGLO |

Just 17 hours after wrapping up a memorable Super Saturday session with a straight-sets victory over Caroline Wozniacki, Serena Williams will be back on the court today against Samantha Stosur in pursuit of her fourth US Open women’s singles championship and, with it, the largest payday in tennis history. Stosur may have wrapped up her evening before Serena even started hers, but the first Australian woman to reach the final here since Wendy Turnbull in 1977 is hardly the fresher player in this matchup, having already logged more than 11 hours on the court courtesy of three three-setters, including the longest match in Grand Slam tournament history. Either way, appropriate in a women’s draw rife with upsets, the 2011 US Open will today crown one of the lowest-seeded women’s champions of the Open Era.

US Open History

1937 – Don Budge defeats Germany’s Gottfried von Cramm to win his first U.S. men’s singles title.

1977 – Guillermo Vilas defeats Jimmy Connors, 2-6, 6-3, 7-6, 6-0, for the men’s singles title in the last US Open match played at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, N.Y.

1982 – Chris Evert wins her sixth and final US Open singles crown, defeating Hana Mandlikova in the final, 6-3, 6-1.

1983 – Jimmy Connors wins his second consecutive and fifth overall singles title at the US Open, defeating Ivan Lendl in the final, 6-3, 6-7, 7-5, 6-0.

1988 – Mats Wilander outlasts Ivan Lendl, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 5-7, 6-4, in four hours and 55 minutes—the longest men’s final in US Open history—and wrests the world’s No. 1 ranking from Lendl in the process.

1993 – Steffi Graf wins her third US Open singles title with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Helena Sukova.

1994 – Andre Agassi becomes the first unseeded man since Fred Stolle in 1966 to win the US Open when he defeats No. 4 seed Michael Stich of Germany, 6-1, 7-6, 7-5, in the men’s singles final. Agassi’s victory comes 28 years to the day after Stolle won his title as an unseeded player, defeating John Newcombe in the final.

1999 – Two years after her sister Venus became the first black US Open finalist since Arthur Ashe in 1972 and the first black woman in a women’s singles final since Althea Gibson in 1958, Serena Williams, seeded No. 7, captures the US Open women’s singles crown by defeating top-seeded Martina Hingis, 6-3, 7-6. At 17 years, 11 months, Serena is the fifth-youngest champion in tournament history.

2004 – Svetlana Kuznetsova becomes the first Russian woman to win the US Open when she defeats countrywoman Elena Dementieva, 6-3, 7-5, in the women’s singles final. The women’s final is played on the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and both Russian finalists pay tribute in pre-match and post-match activities. Kuznetsova enters Stadium Court for the final wearing an FDNY hat for the Fire Department of New York, while Dementieva wears a NYPD hat to honor the New York Police Department. In post-match speeches, both players pay tribute to the heroes and victims of Sept. 11, as well as the Russian school massacre 11 days earlier in Beslan.

2005 – Roger Federer successfully defends his US Open singles title by defeating 35-year-old Andre Agassi in the men’s singles final, 6-3, 2-6, 7-6(1), 6-1. Federer becomes the first man in the Open Era and third overall to successfully defend the Wimbledon and US Open titles in the same year, joining Don Budge (1937-38) and Bill Tilden (1920-21). Playing his 20th consecutive US Open, Agassi is the oldest player to compete for the singles title here since a 39-year-old Ken Rosewall was runner-up to Jimmy Connors in 1974.

2011 – Kim Clijsters wins her third US Open women’s singles title in record time, beating Vera Zvonareva, 6- 2, 6-1, in just 59 minutes—the shortest final since the US Open began keeping year-to-year records in 1980. The championship is Clijsters’ second in a row and extends her winning streak at Flushing Meadows to 21 matches (she won the title in 2005 and did not play from 2006 to 2008), which is the second-longest run of the Open Era, trailing only Chris Evert’s 31 consecutive wins. A much longer match precedes Clijsters’ victory, with Novak Djokovic fighting off two match points with forehand winners to defeat five-time champion Roger Federer, 5-7, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2, 7-5, and advance to his second men’s singles final. The encounter marks the fourth straight year the two men have met on the final weekend, with Federer having won the previous three.

(Courtesy of USTA)

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