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Karolina Muchova posted a strong 6-0, 6-3 win against Sorana Cirstea to enter her first-ever semi-final at the US Open, on Tuesday. The match drew to a close after an hour and 38 minutes of play. Despite the score-line looking one-sided, the match was anything but.
The Romanian tried her best but Muchova was able to get her shots through, time and again. The Czech was also able to rely on her first and second serve at different moments in the match to put her through.
US Open: Karolina Muchova's momentum continues to swing upwards
In the first set, Muchova won just 50% of her first-serve points.
But her second serve didn’t come under pressure and she lost only three of the 12 points played on her second serve. On return, too, Muchova was amply good. She won 67% points on return, on both Cirstea’s first and second serves.
This disparity meant that Cirstea despite finishing with only 13 points fewer than Muchova’s 36 in the set, she wasn’t able to win a single game in its entirety. In the second set, Cirstea did put up a fightback.
She won her first game of the match and then broke Muchova to go up 2-0 in the set. But she wasn’t able to consolidate the break and lost her serve yet again. And as soon as she regained the break back, the 10th seed also looked like she’d regained the momentum.
The next two games remained on serve but after that Muchova won the next four games in a row to pocket the win. The biggest differentiator in the match was in the break-point conversion stat. Both Muchova and Cirstea generated 11 break points each, on the other’s serve.
But while Cirstea converted just one of these, the world no. 10 was successful in converting six. In fact, nine of 11 break points on Muchova’s serve came about in the opening set. The US Open’s the third Slam in which Karolina Muchova’s made it to the semi-finals.
This is also the second time this season that she’s at least gone to this stage of a Major, coming after Roland Garros where she was a finalist (lost to Iga Swiatek). The 27-year-old will play Coco Gauff for a chance to reach her second Major finale.