Clijsters to make it 7-6 against Venus Williams in the US Open SF
It is hard to believe that Venus Williams is now 30 but the world number 4 remains a formidable player at the highest level. In reaching the semi-final against Kim Clijsters, she made fairly hard work of despatching French Open champion and world number 4, Francesca Schiavone. Although the wind was blamed in part, Venus served 9 double faults and made 33 unforced errors in the QF, stats which on the face of it cannot be repeated if she is to beat Kim Clijsters this evening (GMT).
Not that Clijsters fared any better in equally windy conditions, struggling to beat Samantha Stosur in 3 sets with 8 double faults and 43 errors. After 12 previous meetings between the semi-finalists, the score stands level at 6-6 and it wouldn’t be the easiest to call. However, Clijsters has won the last 2 encounters and has beaten Wiliams en-route to both her previous US Open wins and it is 9 years since Williams won here and so Clijsters is given the vote at a widely available 1-2.