Venus Williams gave Arthur Ashe Stadium a jolt in the final game. Pulled wide by the return of serve, Williams chased it down and ripped a forehand down the line so heavy that Pam Shriver, calling the match courtside, quipped she could see smoke rising off the strings.<\/p>\n
The finish came a few points later, briefly interrupted by a rush of kids who spilled into the front row on match point, waving Sharpies and programs in Williams\u2019 direction. She caught the moment, smiled at the commotion, then steadied herself and struck the serve that set up Fernandez\u2019s volley down the middle.<\/p>\n
It ended with a 6-3, 6-4 win over No.12 seeds Ekaterina Alexandrova and Zhang Shuai, a 74-minute victory built on four breaks of serve and the steady pressure of a righty-lefty pairing that complemented each other all match — sometimes both at the net, sometimes one setting up the other. Fernandez delivered the finishing touch, and together they handed Alexandrova her second defeat of the day after a singles loss to Iga Swiatek.<\/p>\n
For Williams, 45, this was her first major quarterfinal of any kind since 2017. Fernandez, the 2021 singles runner-up, played with an ease that made the occasion feel smaller. The age gap was 23 years. On court, it didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of strategy talk,\u201d Fernandez said on court afterward. \u201cI have full confidence in Venus, and I hope she has full confidence in me.\u201d<\/p>\n
She paused, then turned toward her partner: \u201cSeeing you on the court with that same big smile \u2026 it\u2019s so inspirational. I love that you love tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams saved her last words for the crowd that had been with them all match. \u201cWhenever we have a moment when it\u2019s not going perfect, you guys bring us up,\u201d she told them.<\/p>\n
They walked off with one last wave in unison, partners in step from first point to last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Venus Williams gave Arthur Ashe Stadium a jolt in the final game. Pulled wide by the return of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-112041","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}