Peng Shuai Advances to US Open Semifinals
When the United States Open began, Peng Shuai said she did not relish being the highest-ranked Chinese player in the tournament, preferring it when Li Na is around, absorbing most of the pressure and attention from the Chinese fans who have become quite a cheering section at the Open in recent years.
But with the third-ranked Li missing the tournament with a knee injury, Peng has leapt into the spotlight and soared through the draw, ousting the Swiss teenager Belinda Bencic in the quarterfinals Tuesday, 6-2, 6-1.
In her 37th Grand Slam tournament, Peng, who is ranked 39th, was playing in her first singles quarterfinal at a major. She will face the winner of Tuesday night's match between 10th-seeded Caroline Wozniacki and 13th-seeded Sara Errani in the semifinals Friday.
Peng, 28, has enjoyed plenty of success as a doubles player, winning two Grand Slam titles with Hsieh Su-Wei.
'It's an amazing time for me,' Peng said after her match, apologizing as she choked back tears. 'It's a long time to play, a long time in my career. So many times I thought to give up, to stop playing. But my coach and my parents tell me to keep fighting, to keep playing and never give up, that this day would come.'
Peng succumbed to none of those emotions during her matches, overpowering most of her opponents. She did not lose her serve against Bencic and has won 36 straight service games, stretching back to her second-round victory over Agnieszka Radwanska. She faced only two break points Tuesday, and had a mere 7 unforced errors to 17 winners.
In doing so, she whisked Bencic out of the Cinderella role she had been settling into as she swept through an upset-filled women's draw. Bencic, 17, was recalling memories of the last Swiss woman to tear around these courts as a teenager, Martina Hingis, not only because they share a home country but also because they share a coach: Hingis's mother, Melanie Molitor.
But since the days when Hingis won the U.S. Open as a 16-year-old in 1997, women's tennis has become more of a power game, a pattern that foretold Peng's domination of Bencic.
Peng used every bit of her strength advantage, pounding winners down the line and giving Bencic no opportunities to swing the match to her advantage. Improving her strength is a way Peng said she has made strides as a singles player.
'I know I have to get stronger and more fit for the two weeks,' she said. 'And I tell myself to never give up.'
Her breakthrough in singles comes just as her doubles partnership with Hsieh is ending. Despite their success, they came into this tournament saying it was their last Grand Slam event together, though they declined to say why they were breaking up. Peng said she had a new partner lined up, but she has not said who it is.
Peng and Hsieh have been playing together since 2009 and reached the No. 2 ranking as a team, but they lost here in the fourth round to Kimiko Date-Krumm and Barbora Zahlavova-Strycova on Monday.
The women's doubles draw got another jolt in the quarterfinals Tuesday when Venus and Serena Williams lost, 7-6 (5), 6-4, to Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina of Russia. The ending came in particularly stunning fashion when Serena Williams double-faulted on match point, sending their opponents into a giddy celebration on the court.
The 15-year-old CiCi Bellis, who stirred the main draw with her first-round upset of No. 12 seed Dominika Cibulkova last week, was hoping to ride that wave of momentum through the junior tournament, where she was the No. 1 seed. But she could not get past Natalia Vikhlyantseva of Russia and lost in the second round, 7-6 (9), 2-6, 6-1. She is still alive in the junior doubles tournament.
Bellis seemed to bounce back from losing the tense first-set tiebreaker, where she fought off six set points, and dominated Vikhlyantseva in the second set. But after taking the allowed 10-minute break after the second set in the sweltering early afternoon sun, Bellis seemed to wilt in the third.
Those early conditions did not seem to bother the American doubles team of Scott Lipsky and Rajeev Ram, who played the first match of the day at Ashe Stadium and beat Eric Butorac and Raven Klassen, 6-3, 7-6 (4), to advance to the semifinals. It helped that the first set lasted a mere 26 minutes and the match 1 hour 19 minutes over all.
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