{"id":22477,"date":"2013-09-07T14:11:51","date_gmt":"2013-09-07T12:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/williams-and-azarenka-reach-us-open-final\/"},"modified":"2013-09-07T14:11:51","modified_gmt":"2013-09-07T12:11:51","slug":"williams-and-azarenka-reach-us-open-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/williams-and-azarenka-reach-us-open-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Williams and Azarenka reach US Open final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t    <a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/?attachment_id=15898\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-15898\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-15898 \" alt=\"Serena Williams. Photo: Reuters\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/d2d80_69702543_69702541-600x337.jpg\" width=\"420\" height=\"236\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Serena Williams. Photo: Reuters<\/p>\n<p>Defending champion Serena Williams will face second seed Victoria Azarenka in a rematch of 2012\u2032s US Open final after they swept through their semi-finals.<\/p>\n<p>Belarusian Azarenka beat Italy\u2019s Flavia Pennetta 6-4 6-2 on Arthur Ashe Stadium in a match with 13 breaks of serve.<\/p>\n<p>Williams, the 31-year-old world number one, then needed seven match points before sealing a convincing 6-0 6-3 win in the second semi-final.<\/p>\n<p>The American has dropped just 16 games in six matches at this year\u2019s event.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a good match,\u201d said Williams. \u201cLi Na is such a great player. I got a little nervous but I was able to close it out, finally.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/race-on-to-become-us-opens-oldest-womens-champion\/\" target=\"_blank\">Li had been expected to provide some sort of a test for the four-time champion<\/a> and actually topped the tournament aces chart heading into the match, but Williams set about dismantling her serve from the outset. \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">BBC Sport<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For more US Open news,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/tag\/us-open\/\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more breaking sporting news and views, visit MySport24 on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MySport24\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mysport24?ref=hl\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/cfa16_zemified_h.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Serena Williams. Photo: Reuters Defending champion Serena Williams will face second seed Victoria Azarenka in a rematch of 2012\u2032s US Open final after they swept through their semi-finals. Belarusian Azarenka beat Italy\u2019s Flavia Pennetta 6-4 6-2 on Arthur Ashe Stadium in a match with 13 breaks of serve. Williams, the 31-year-old world number one, then [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[3258,830,885],"class_list":{"0":"post-22477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mysport","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}