Serena Williams fought off fatigue to post a 6-4, 6-0 win over Chanelle Scheepers Friday to reach the semi-finals of the WTA hardcourt tournament in Stanford. Williams, the top seed and defending champion, won a 43-minute first set punctuated by five breaks of serve against her sixth-seeded South African opponent.
She said she was still feeling the effects of her triumph at Wimbledon last weekend and the subsequent flight to California. “I still have major jet-lag,” said the 30-year-old US star, who said she awoke in the early hours of Friday and watched a DVD of popular series “Desperate Housewives” . “I’ve been up a long time,” she said. “I’m tired now and ready to sleep, but it felt good to be out here — and especially good to win.
“I didn’t want to take anything, so I was wide awake just like as if I was in Europe. I started the match slow and sluggish, but I expected that. I just stayed in there until I began moving better. “I told myself just to get through it, win quickly. I’m a fighter, I just click — the mentality just kicks in.” Williams, whose first title upon her return last summer from a series of health problems came in Stanford, swept through the second set. On Saturday she’ll face Sorana Cirstea after the Romanian roared back to upset Slovak third seed Dominika Cibulkova 6-7 (5/7), 6-2, 6-0.
Yanina Wickmayer pounced on nine double-faults from Marion Bartoli to knock the French second seed out in their quarter-final. Belgium’s Wickmayer, seeded fifth, ousted Bartoli 6-3, 6-2 to advance to a final-four clash with American Coco Vandeweghe. Vandeweghe reached the first WTA-level semi-final of her career with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Poland’s Urszula Radwanska.