NEW YORK – Ninth-seeded Australian Samantha Stosur reached the US Open final on Saturday, holding off determined German Angelique Kerber 6-3, 2-6, 6-2.
Stosur, the 2010 French Open runner-up, will face either world number one Caroline Wozniacki or 13-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams in Sunday’s championship match.
But she had to work to the bitter end to subdue the 92nd-ranked Kerber, a surprise semi-finalist who had never before made it past the third round of a major tournament and never won a title on the WTA Tour.
The 23-year-old lefthander used her booming forehand to turn the tables on Stosur in the second set, breaking the Australian to love in the fourth game and breaking her again in the eighth game to level the match.
The 27-year-old Stosur regrouped in emphatic style, blazing to a 5-0 lead in the third before Kerber slowed her march with a break for 5-1.
After Kerber held for 5-2, Stosur had to save four break points before earning her first match point with a forehand winner.
She netted a forehand, but on her second opportunity she made no mistake, closing it out with an emphatic backhand volley.
“It’s one of the best feelings I’ve ever had,” a beaming Stosur said of reaching her second career Grand Slam singles final.
She had already become the first Australian woman to reach the US Open semi-finals since Wendy Turnbull in 1984 – the year Stosur was born.
Stosur and Kerber played on the Grandstand court – the number three show court at Flushing Meadows – as organizers struggled to get men’s and women’s semi-finals completed on Saturday after rain wiped out two days of play on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Wozniacki and Williams were to battle later on the Arthur Ashe Stadium in the slot originally scheduled for the women’s final, which will now be played on Sunday, with the men’s final pushed back to Monday.