New world No.1 Angelique Kerber avenged her loss to Karolina Pliskova in the recent Western & Southern Open final, ending the Czech’s 11-match winning streak with a 6-3 4-6 6-4 victory for the US Open crown.
After strongly marching through the first set with breaks in the opening and closing games, the second-seeded Kerber was for the first time shaken midway through the second set, when Pliskova broke her serve in the seventh game and held on to it to take the match to a decider. Compared to the first set, in the second set Pliskova improved her winners-to-unforced-errors differential from -2 to +5, while Kerber worsened hers from +5 to 0. In the third set, Kerber trailed by a break at 3-1 before coming back against the tenth-seeded Pliskova.
En route to her second Grand Slam champion’s trophy, Kerber defeated Polona Hercog in the first round, Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in the second, Catherine Bellis in the third, 14th seed Petra Kvitova in the fourth, last year’s finalist and seventh seed Roberta Vinci in the quarterfinals, Caroline Wozniacki in the semis, and finally in-form Pliskova, who had eliminated both the Williams sisters from the draw and who hadn’t been past the third round at a major until this tournament.
This has been an impressive season for the German 28-year-old, as she won her maiden Grand Slam title at the Australian Open, made the final at Wimbledon, won the silver medal at the Rio Olympics and has now become the US Open champion.
Kerber’s winning tennis apparel: the Adidas Fall Pro Tank in flash red, the Adidas Fall Pro Skirt, and Adidas Adizero Ubersonic 2 Shoes.
Huge congrats to Angelique! She deserves to be a No 1 after a year like this (2 GS titles, 1 final, silver Olympic medal)! Congrats to Pliskova as well – what a run!
Very competitive match to watch and congratulations to the champion, Angie….she is definitely the player of the year. Ka. Pliskova gained a lot of experience and should be a Grand Slam champion in the future that the Czech Republic can be proud of. Well done, ladies!