Serena Williams makes 1 more early exit from Paris
PARIS — Serena Williams is usually the one who saves match points, not wastes them.
Who seizes control of an exchange, not cedes it.
Who turns up her game at Grand Slam time.
Except at the French Open, the lone major tournament she's won only once and where she's now gone seven years without even reaching the semifinals.
The No. 1-ranked Williams dropped 17 consecutive points during one stretch, climbed all the way back to within a point of victory, then faded late and lost to No. 7 Samantha Stosur of Australia 6-2, 6-7 (2), 8-6 on Wednesday in the Roland Garros quarterfinals.
"Had I played better for two minutes, maybe the result could have been different. But it didn't work out," said Williams, who missed a forehand by an inch or so when she held a match point at 5-4 in the final set. "Just wasn't playing well today. Last year, I choked. I guess it's a redundant story with me."
The upset was Stosur's second in a row — she eliminated four-time champion Justine Henin in the fourth round — and came a day after men's No. 1 and defending champion Roger Federer was stunned by Robin Soderling.
"It's not over yet," said Stosur, a tour-best 19-2 on clay this season and a 2009 French Open semifinalist. "I want to definitely try and keep going."
In one semifinal today, Stosur will play No. 4 Jelena Jankovic, who got past unseeded Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 7-5, 6-4. No. 5 Elena Dementieva will face No. 17 Francesca Schiavone in the other.
For the first time at any Grand Slam tournament since the 1979 Australian Open, none of the four female semifinalists owns a major title. Williams has 12, with five at the Australian Open — including this year — and three apiece at the U.S. Open and Wimbledon. The one at the French Open came in 2002, and she was a semifinalist in Paris the following year, but not since.
"I definitely was nowhere near my best today," Williams said, then added: "But she played really well."
About an hour after that loss, Williams went back on court to team with her older sister Venus and reach the women's doubles final by beating Liezel Huber and Anabel Medina Garrigues 2-6, 6-2, 6-4. That victory means Serena Williams will top the WTA rankings in singles and doubles as of next week.
The younger Williams isn't accustomed to getting pushed around on a court, but that's exactly what Stosur managed to do, commanding points with deep groundstrokes lathered with spin.
"I didn't want to let her try and dictate the points early on, so I tried to do that straight back to her," said Stosur, who recently switched to the same sort of synthetic racket strings Nadal uses. "You can't give her much."
