SPORTS
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
East Oregonian
B3
‘Something our sport has never seen’: Serena to Wimbledon SF
By HOWARD FENDRICH
AP Tennis Writer
W I M BLEDON,
England — Slowed by a
balky ankle, trailing by a
service break in the third
set of her Wimbledon quar-
terfinal, Serena Williams
appeared to be in trouble
Tuesday against an oppo-
nent playing the tourna-
ment of her life.
Williams was down,
yes. But out? No way. And
now she is two victories
from that 24th Grand Slam
title that’s been barely elud-
ing her.
Lifting her play a much-
needed notch down the
stretch to grab the last
three games, capping the
comeback with her 19th
ace — at 121 mph, no
less — Williams reached
the semifinals at the All
England Club by gutting
out a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 win over
55th-ranked Alison Riske.
“I had to just button up
and play hard,” said Wil-
liams, who owns seven
Wimbledon titles. “She was
playing her heart out.”
That she was. Riske,
a 29-year-old from Pitts-
burgh, was appearing in
her first major quarterfinal.
For Williams, this was No.
51.
That might have made
all the difference. It’s
Williams who possesses
boundless muscle mem-
ory in these situations,
who knows what it takes to
come through in the tight-
est contests on the biggest
stages.
“I definitely thought
maybe I had a peek here
and there at a couple open-
ings, but Serena really
upped her level, as only a
champion would,” Riske
said.
“It was really, actually,
very interesting for me
to be on the opposite end,
because I felt her up her
game and her intensity,”
Riske said with a smile.
“Yeah, I hope she takes the
title now.”
Next for the 37-year-old
Williams will be a match
against 54th-ranked Bar-
bora Strycova of the Czech
AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth
Serena Williams celebrates after winning a point against Alison Riske during a women’s quarterfinal match Tuesday at the
Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London.
Republic, who reached her
first Grand Slam semifi-
nal at age 33 with a 7-6
(5), 6-1 victory over No. 19
Johanna Konta of Britain.
The other semifinal Thurs-
day will be No. 7 Simona
Halep of Romania against
No. 8 Elina Svitolina of
Ukraine.
After edging Riske in
singles, Williams cooled
down by riding a station-
ary bike while holding her
nearly 2-year-old daughter,
Olympia, in one arm. Then
Williams went out and
joined Andy Murray to win
their second-round match
in mixed doubles 7-5, 6-3
against Fabrice Martin and
Raquel Atawo.
Halep, a former No. 1
who won the 2018 French
Open, followed up her
Daly out of British,
can use cart on PGA
Tour in Kentucky
By DOUG FERGUSON
AP Golf Writer
John Daly is free to ride
a cart during the week of the
British Open — just not at
Royal Portrush.
Daly’s manager said Tues-
day he is likely to play the
Barbasol Championship next
week in Kentucky, and the
two-time major champion
with osteoarthritis in his right
knee already has been granted
a cart to use in the PGA Tour
event.
Andy Pazder, the chief
tournaments and competi-
tion officer for the PGA Tour,
said Daly late last year was
approved to use a cart through
2019 at PGA Tour events and
PGA Tour Champions events
that require walking.
Daly, who has not played a
regular PGA Tour event since
The Greenbrier last sum-
mer, also is contemplating the
Barracuda Championship in
Reno, Nevada, the following
week.
The R&A announced
Tuesday that Daly had with-
drawn from the British Open
“due to a medical condition.”
The nature of that condi-
tion — be it his arthritic knee
or a spider bite — was not
entirely clear.
Daly has been dealing
with arthritis in his knee,
and he says he also was diag-
nosed as diabetic. That led
him to request a cart for the
PGA Championship at Beth-
page Black under the Amer-
icans with Disabilities Act,
which the PGA of Amer-
ica approved after Daly sub-
mitted the required medical
information.
The R&A rejected his
request for a cart over the
weekend, saying it felt walk-
ing was an integral part of the
tournament. “We must also
ensure, as far as possible, the
challenge is the same for all
players in the field,” it said.
Pulling out of the British
Open, however, might also be
linked to a social media post
from Daly on Sunday.
In a Twitter note that he
described as “My life chap-
ter 84k,” Daly says he was
on vacation in England last
week when he was bitten
by a spider without realiz-
ing it. He was taken to an
emergency room on Fri-
day — apparently at Union-
town Hospital in Pennsylva-
nia, north of the Nemacolin
Resort — and taken straight
into surgery to remove
a major infection in his
abdominal area. He says he
also was treated for early
sepsis from a brown recluse.
His post included hashtags
that say he was in some seri-
ous pain, glad to be alive and
the photos were too graphic.
Daly won the PGA Cham-
pionship in 1991 at Crooked
Stick, making him exempt
for as long as he wants. He
won the British Open at
St. Andrews in 1995 and is
exempt for that major through
2031 when he is 65.
He still has past champion
status on the PGA Tour, allow-
ing him into tournaments that
have room in the field.
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elimination of 15-year-old
sensation Coco Gauff by
defeating Zhang Shuai of
China 7-6 (4), 6-1 to get
to her second semifinal
at Wimbledon. Svitolina
will make her debut in that
round at any major tour-
nament thanks to beating
Karolina Muchova of the
Czech Republic 7-5, 6-4.
These sorts of stakes,
and this sort of setting, are
unfamiliar for Riske, who
mistakenly headed to her
changeover chair thinking
the match’s fifth game was
over when the score was
just 40-15.
Spectators chortled; she
grinned and walked back to
the baseline.
Even if Williams was
hardly perfect, she got by,
aided by her greatest-in-
the-game serve and Riske’s
miscues. Most glaringly,
Riske double-faulted five
times in the final set, at
least somewhat a result
of trying to do too much
against William’s superb
returns.
“It’s no secret that Ser-
ena has an amazing serve.
But Serena has an equal-
ly-as-amazing
return,”
Riske said. “I’ve never
played anyone that has a
return like Serena. That
put a lot of pressure on my
serve.”
Still, Riske played tre-
mendously well for most of
the afternoon, just as she
did while going 14-1 on
grass in 2019 until Tuesday.
She won two of Wil-
liams’ first four service
games and finished 5 for 5
on break points. Her deep
and flat groundstrokes off
both sides jarred Williams
repeatedly. Until, that is,
Riske wilted late — which
was understandable, given
that she became the first
woman in Wimbledon his-
tory to play three-setters in
five consecutive matches
to open the tournament,
according to the WTA.
Williams rolled her
right ankle and her move-
ment was hardly ideal. Late
in the second set, she was
visited by a trainer, who
applied extra tape to the
ankle. That was during a
stretch when Riske, talking
to herself between points,
claimed four games in a
row to take the second
set and lead the third by a
break at 1-0.
“I thought,” Riske said,
“I was very close.”
Not close enough. Wil-
liams was not going to go
quietly. She held at love
to lead 4-3, and then came
the key game. Riske saved
a trio of break points and
was a point from 4-all after
claiming a point when Wil-
liams slipped along the
well-worn baseline.
First Williams got back
to deuce by using a drop
shot to set up a volley
winner. Then she earned
yet another break point
on a thrilling 10-stroke
exchange, using a drop shot
to bring Riske forward and
delivering a volley winner.
Williams lifted both arms
and jutted her jaw. In the
stands, her husband leaped
from his seat, pointed his
index fingers at her and
screamed.
On the next point, Riske
double-faulted,
handing
over the last break Wil-
liams needed.
After breaking Steffi
Graf’s record for most
Grand Slam trophies in the
professional era by winning
her 23rd at the 2017 Aus-
tralian Open while preg-
nant, Williams took time
off. Since returning to the
tour last season, she came
close to equaling Margaret
Court’s Slam count of 24
— which was accumulated
in part against amateurs
— but lost in the finals at
Wimbledon and the U.S.
Open.
Williams dealt with inju-
ries and illness this year,
playing just 12 matches
until last week.
“This is the first time
since (January) that I actu-
ally felt, like, good,” she
said at her news confer-
ence, while Olympia was
held by Williams’ agent at
the back of the room. “It’s
been a really, really long
year for me already, and
hard year.”
That’s true. Also true:
She’s Serena Williams.
And so here she is, back
in Wimbledon’s semifinals
for the 12th time.
“She’s
something,”
Riske said, “our sport has
never seen before.”