Errani breaks, rallies by Venus

Italian Sara Errani (shown) celebrates during her third-round match against American Venus Williams  on Friday at the U.S. Open in New York. Errani defeated Williams 6-0, 0-6, 7-6 (5) after Williams had a chance to serve out the match in the final set. Williams made 52 unforced errors in the match.
Italian Sara Errani (shown) celebrates during her third-round match against American Venus Williams on Friday at the U.S. Open in New York. Errani defeated Williams 6-0, 0-6, 7-6 (5) after Williams had a chance to serve out the match in the final set. Williams made 52 unforced errors in the match.

NEW YORK — A day before facing Venus Williams — and a partisan crowd — at the U.S. Open, Italy’s Sara Errani came across a video posted on Twitter that gave her a little extra motivation.

It showed a pair of former players and coaches, Brad Gilbert and Darren Cahill, forecasting Friday at Flushing Meadows. Both picked Williams to win.

The 13th-seeded Errani’s ears perked up particularly when Gilbert referred to her “cottage cheese” serve and predicted she’d win only four games.

So much for that. In a riveting third-round match of wild momentum swings, the 19th-seeded Williams, a twotime U.S. Open champion, came within two points of victory four times before succumbing to Errani 6-0, 0-6, 7-6 (5).

As if needing a reminder of what she’d seen online, Errani was interviewed for TV by Cahill before the match, and by Gilbert afterward.

“Let’s just say that during the match I thought about that [video] more than once,” said Errani, who pounded her chest with a fist and put a finger to her lips on court as if to hush doubters — or the loud folks in Arthur Ashe Stadium pulling for her American opponent.

Williams is 34, dealing with an autoimmune disease, and hasn’t been to the fourth round at a major since 2011. She also played a doubles match Thursday with her sister Serena that lasted about 2½ hours and finished shortly before 8 p.m.

“I guess the schedule definitely wasn’t ideal,” Williams said. “It was just such a late match.”

After losing to Errani, Williams went on court again for doubles and won that one, although she was treated by a trainer.

Williams did not blame injury or fatigue for the way she failed to close out Errani, including getting broken while serving at 5-3 in the third.

“I went for too much,” explained Williams, 3-0 against Errani until Friday.

Errani is listed at 5-4½ — 8½ inches shorter than Williams — and truly, there is just as big a disparity in their serving. Errani’s top speed Friday was 88 mph, about 30 mph slower than Williams. Errani’s second serves were in the low 60s mph, but she got 86 percent of her first serves in.

Her next opponent will be another surprise winner: 32-year-old qualifier Mirjana Lucic-Baroni of Croatia, who eliminated No. 2-seeded Simona Halep of Romania 7-6 (6), 6-2. Lucic-Baroni hadn’t reached the fourth round at a major since getting to Wimbledon’s semifinals in 1999.

Maria Sharapova reached the U.S. Open’s fourth round by taking five of the last six games after her opponent, Sabine Lisicki, was warned by the chair umpire about receiving coaching help. No. 5 Sharapova eliminated No. 26 Lisicki 6-2, 6-4 in a hard-hitting match that began Friday night and ended past midnight Saturday. The men’s draw, in con trast, has gone pretty much to form. No. 2 Roger Feder er’s 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Australia’s Sam Groth at night closed the second round with only two top-20 men departed No. 11 Ernests Gulbis and No 15 Fabio Fognini, both elimi nated Friday.

Halep, the French Open runner-up and Wimbledon semifinalist, had three set points in the first while ahead 5-2, before collapsing. When that lead slipped away, Halep said, “I wasn’t in a good mood.

Williams wound up with 52 unforced errors, more than twice as many as Errani. A ter rible start hurt, too: It was the sixth time in her 276 Grand Slam matches that Williams lost a set at love.

Of the five other women to shut her out in a set at a major — Martina Hingis at the 1997 U.S. Open, Lindsay Davenport at the 1999 Australian Open Arantxa Sanchez Vicario at the 2000 French Open, Agnes Sza vay at the 2009 French Open and Kim Clijsters at the 2009 U.S. Open — four won multi ple Grand Slam singles titles.

Sports on 08/30/2014

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