Venus Williams put on a terrific fight to secure her place in the semifinals of the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Thursday. The top American took care of business playing tight games of tennis with Garbine Muguruza before capping the night with a 7-5, 6-4 win on Centre Court at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. In what looked to be a possible three setter, Williams found a way to etch out big points at the right moments to gain another day to play for the final title of the year.
It was down to their match to determine who would join Karolina Pliskova in the semifinals. Despite her loss to Jelena Ostapenko, she awaited the winner between this year’s Wimbledon finalist who faced for the first time since Muguruza beat Williams. The American went through a very long fight against Ostapenko two days ago hoping to lessen the effort needed to win this one. Muguruza’s last defeat was to the Czech who beat her quickly, meaning that a lot of fight had to come in order to give her a chance to become world number one again.
She had a tougher opening service game than Williams who nearly threatened but missed on the break point. Muguruza responded with a body serve that got her to deuce before focusing on leveling the score. In order to keep on serve with Williams through the fourth game, the 24-year-old once again battled on deuce and avoided giving her the break. Williams faced her first attack from Muguruza on the break, saving two points including the one on the deuce draw. She held serve possession to maintain the lead but it became quite clear that every point was being fought for.
The first love service hold came for Muguruza who managed to put down a winner and pressure on Williams to falter. She felt the heat with three errors in the seventh giving Muguruza enough room to secure the first break of the set and the lead change. Williams put a lot of aggression into her counteroffensive going into the eighth that also gave her a much-needed break keeping the score level.
The moment came for someone to take the first step to have a chance at winning the set which Williams did in the ninth hoping to break Muguruza. She could not get ahead on the scoreboard to achieve the result she wanted and instead saw a long drawn out battle to an unknown conclusion. Williams got a chance to break the 24-year-old who made a critical error that forced deuce. It left a chance open for the American to make things happen for herself and did so with a winner that gave her the set after 55 minutes. Both played very hard tennis but the edge ultimately went to Williams who had more winners and aces as well as success on the break points.
The second started much differently with Muguruza winning with a break but the pace was still drawn out as they continued fighting hard during every point. It lasted for three games with the Spaniard gaining an edge in the set leading 3-1. Williams fought back to get even with Muguruza through six games that enabled the tug of war for control. It went on through the eighth until a service hold in the ninth gave the American the leverage needed to play for the match. Williams got ahead in her quest for the break against Muguruza keeping the heat high on her opponent. She gave herself two match point attempts, securing the victory on the second that brought a closet to the battle in 1 hour and 41 minutes.
“I played an amazing opponent and she’s had an amazing year, I’m so happy to win the last point.” Williams said to Andrew Krasny after the match. “It’s not easy out here,” she said. “You have to play every point well or else you find yourself losing the game. I had some great coaching going into the match and I hope we can win some more.”
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