Serena Williams dominates Sara Errani, reaches U.S. Open final

NEW YORK -- Serena Williams hasn’t lost a set in this U.S. Open and perhaps not coincidentally her mood has remained tranquil.

Williams, 30, who exited the last two U.S. Opens she played after having angry meltdowns on the court, appears on track to win her fourth U.S. Open this year. Williams, seeded fourth, smashed 10th-seeded Italian Sara Errani, 6-1, 6-2, Friday in the semifinals. Williams has lost only 19 games in her first six matches here.

Williams ended her semifinal win with her ninth ace and then she blew kisses to the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd.

In Saturday’s 4 p.m. PT women’s final, Williams will play top-seeded and top-ranked Victoria Azarenka, and Williams will also be aiming for her 15th Grand Slam tournament championship. Williams called it “awesome” that she is in the final. She won her first U.S. Open title 13 years ago.

“I’m American guys, go USA, it’s an Olympic year, we can do it,” Williams, who won the Wimbledon title and an Olympic singles gold medal in London earlier this summer, said to the crowd after her victory.

It took Williams 30 minutes to win a first set in which she hit 18 winners to three from Errani. Williams also won 29 points to 16 by Errani, more demonstration of the American’s dominance.

In the first game of the second set Errani fought off three break points in the first game, but on the fourth, Williams hit a gargantuan backhand service return winner off a wispy second serve from the 5-foot-4 1/2 Errani. Williams’ shout of “Come on!” seemed to make some threatening storm clouds hurry away.

Williams’ first serve was on average 30 mph faster than Errani’s into the second set and Errani was so pleased when she held serve in the third game of that set, with a clever crosscourt backhand winner, the Italian doubles specialist did a double fist pump even though she still trailed, 6-1, 2-1.

Errani, in fact, will become the No. 1-ranked doubles player in the world Monday when the WTA Tour computer is updated, and this was the 25-year-old’s second major singles semifinal of the year (she got that far, and then some, at the French Open, where she reached the final).

If Errani was tempted into believing she might begin to outplay Williams, the American finished off the fourth game by serving three straight aces, including her two fastest to that point, at 117 and 119 mph, to take a 3-1 lead. The lead grew to two breaks in the next game. Williams won the final point by playing better baseline tennis than Errani.

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