{"id":24135,"date":"2013-09-09T15:16:36","date_gmt":"2013-09-09T19:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=24135"},"modified":"2013-09-09T15:16:36","modified_gmt":"2013-09-09T19:16:36","slug":"three-set-victory-delivers-17th-grand-slam-title-for-serena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=24135","title":{"rendered":"Three-Set Victory Delivers 17th Grand Slam Title For Serena"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>\u00a0Serena Williams<\/b> got the challenge a defending U. S. Open champion should expect\u00a0on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>It took three sets for her to close out a victory over <b>Victoria Azarenka<\/b>. Final score: 7-5, 6-7 (6-8), 6-1. It\u2019s the fifth Open title for <b>Williams<\/b> and her only difficult match in two weeks at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York.\u00a0She hadn\u2019t lost a set in her previous six matches, but was bothered by the swirling air and <b>Azarenka\u2019s<\/b> strong play.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<b>Vika\u2019s<\/b> such a great opponent; she\u2019s such a fighter,\u201d <b>Williams<\/b> said after the match. \u201cIt was never over until match point.\u201d The match started with a pair of breaks as first <b>Azarenka <\/b>and then <b>Williams<\/b> failed to hold serve. In a tight first set, Williams notched the decisive break in the 11th game and then served out the set to love.<\/p>\n<p>A mammoth fourth game in the third set ended with <b>Williams <\/b>breaking <b>Azarenka<\/b> to lead 3-1 and the defending champion did not look back to move within one major victory of matching <b>Chris Ever<\/b>t and <b>Martina Navratilova <\/b>(both 18 majors).<\/p>\n<p><b>Williams<\/b> smashed 36 winners during the final, compared to just 17 from <b>Azarenka<\/b>, but <b>Williams<\/b> finished with 35 unforced errors to <b>Azarenka\u2019<\/b>s 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0Serena Williams got the challenge a defending U. S. Open champion should expect\u00a0on Sunday. It took three sets for her to close out a victory over Victoria Azarenka. Final score: 7-5, 6-7 (6-8), 6-1. It\u2019s the fifth Open title for Williams and her only difficult match in two weeks at the USTA Billie Jean King [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}