ITF

34 ITFWORLD WINTER 2017 Muguruza, who had maintained her good form since Wimbledon, was viewed by many as the favourite but the Spaniard lost a big- hitting encounter with Petra Kvitova in the fourth round. Ostapenko fell to Daria Kasatkina in the third round, Pliskova was less than convincing in making the quarterfinals, where she lost to CoCo Vandeweghe, and Halep had the misfortune to draw Maria Sharapova, an unseeded wild card, in the first round. Sharapova, playing in her first Grand Slam tournament since serving a 15-month Nadal had not won any of his previous 34 tournaments on hard courts but claimed his 16th Grand Slam title and his third US Open with a crushing 63 63 64 victory over Anderson. The 31-year- old Spaniard, who hit the ball with great assurance from the baseline and also played beautifully at the net, made only 11 unforced errors (29 fewer than Anderson), did not have to defend any break points and made regular inroads into the big- serving South African's service games. While Nadal and Federer had been the clear favourites going into the men's tournament, the women's competition looked wide open after a summer in which younger players had taken advantage of the absence of the pregnant Serena Williams, who had not played since winning the Australian Open. Jelena Ostapenko had triumphed at the French Open, Garbine Muguruza had won her second Grand Slam title at Wimbledon and Karolina Pliskova, holding off the challenge of Simona Halep, had become world No. 1. US OPEN suspension under the Tennis Anti-Doping Programme, beat Halep in three sets and made the fourth round before losing to Anastasija Sevastova. The quarterfinal line-up featured only two players with Grand Slam singles titles to their name as Kvitova met Venus Williams in one of the year's most memorable contests. Williams, a runner-up at the Australian Open and Wimbledon earlier in the year, won 63 36 76(2) to reach her 23rd Grand Slam semifinal. At 37 years and three months she beat her own mark as the oldest player to make a Grand Slam semifinal since Martina Navratilova at Wimbledon in 1994. Williams, who had won the second of her two US Open titles 16 years earlier, joined Vandeweghe, Sloane Stephens and Madison Keys in the first all- American semifinal line-up in New York since 1981. Keys crushed Vandeweghe 61 62, but the other semifinal was desperately close. Williams was within Juan Martin del Potro beat Roger Federer in the quarters New York missed the worse effects of Hurricane Irma Garbine Muguruza's challenge was ended by Petra Kvitova Venus Williams narrowly lost to Stephens in their semifinal

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