Kim Clijsters reacts after winning the first set over Serena Williams in Saturday's semifinal. (Charles Krupa/Associated Press)Bad weather. High-ranked opponents. The defending champion. Nothing is getting in the way of Kim Clijsters in her return to competitive women's tennis.
The Belgian star clinched a berth in the U.S. Open final, upsetting 2008 winner Serena Williams 6-4, 7-5 on Saturday night in a match that ended with a dramatic twist.
A week ago, the unseeded, unranked Clijsters ousted Serena's sister, Venus, to advance to the quarter-finals.
In Sunday's final, 2005 champion Clijsters will play No. 9 Caroline Wozniacki, who beat Yanina Wickmayer 6-3, 6-3 on Saturday night.
The Clijsters/Williams match featured plenty of powerful groundstrokes by both women. No one will remember a single shot that was struck, though, because of the unusual way it finished.
With Williams serving at 5-6, 15-30 in the second set, she faulted on her first serve. On the second serve, a line judge called a foot fault, making it a double-fault — a call rarely, if ever, seen at that stage of any match, let alone the semifinals of a Grand Slam tournament.
That made the score 15-40, putting Clijsters one point from victory.
Instead of stepping to the baseline to serve again, Williams went over and shouted and cursed at the line judge, pointing at her and shaking a ball at her.
Williams already had been given a code violation warning when she broke her racket after losing the first set. So the chair umpire now awarded a penalty point to Clijsters, ending the match.
"She was called for a foot fault, and a point later, she said something to a line umpire, and it was reported to the chair, and that resulted in a point penalty," Earley explained. "And it just happened that point penalty was match point. It was a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct."
When the ruling was announced, Williams walked around the net to the other end of the court to shake hands with a stunned Clijsters, who did not appear to understand what had happened.
"I used to have a real temper, and I've gotten a lot better," Williams said in her post-match news conference. "So I know you don't believe me, but I used to be worse. Yes, yes, indeed."
Lost in the theatrics was Clijsters' significant accomplishment: In only her third tournament back after 2 1/2 years in retirement, the 26-year-old became the first mother to reach a Grand Slam final since Evonne Goolagong Cawley won Wimbledon 1980.
Clijsters left tennis in 2007 to get married and have a baby, before returning to the tour this month. She is trying to become the first unseeded player to reach the finals of the U.S. Open since Venus Williams did it in 1997.
Nadal works quickly after delay
Rafael Nadal of Spain came to play Saturday at the U.S. Open, while Fernando Gonzalez left his game in the rain as they completed their interrupted match.
Nadal advanced to the men's semifinals with a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2), 6-0 victory. It is the only Grand Slam tournament to elude him in his career.
Nadal will face No. 6 seed Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina, who has been waiting more than two days to learn who will be his next opponent. Rain postponed the Nadal-Gonzalez match on Thursday night and washed away any hope of resuming on Friday.
Not long after Nadal-Gonzalez wrapped up, a steady drizzle returned, forcing the postponement of the men's doubles final and delaying the start of the women's semifinals.
Top seed Roger Federer will meet No. 4 Novak Djokovic in the other semifinal.
The men's final, usually played on Sunday, has been pushed back to Monday on account of the weather for the second consecutive year, a financial hit for the U.S. Tennis Association. The men's final hadn't been played on Monday since 1987.
Nadal has a 4-2 career edge over Del Potro, but the Argentine has defeated the Spaniard in their two most recent meetings, most recently at the Rogers Cup in Montreal last month.
Plus, Del Potro should be well-rested, considering he hasn't played a point since his quarter-final victory Thursday.
Saturday's match resumed with the score 3-2 Nadal in the second set tiebreaker and he proceeded to ring up the next four points to take the second set.
Gonzalez of Chile was spraying shots outside the lines and had his serve broken in the first game of the fourth set. He would later fling his racket to the ground angrily.
Nadal mixed it up, tossing in a beautiful drop shot to race to a 4-0 lead.
Gonzalez, who was looking to reach his second career Grand Slam final, seemed to lose heart after that point.
Nadal has been reluctant to answer questions about his health, saying Saturday that he will talk about it more once his U.S. Open is over.
After his stunning fourth-round exit at the French Open — he was 31-0 at Roland Garros before that loss — Nadal took time off to deal with tendinitis in his knees. He cited that as the reason for declining to defend his Wimbledon title, part of a two-month break he took.
With files from The Associated Press
