Shelby Rogers reaches for a shot during action in her WTA tennis tournament match against Serena Williams in Nicholasville, Ky., Friday, Aug. 14, 2020. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Entering Friday, Serena Williams had played 967 tour-level singles matches as a professional, with just four losses against opponents ranked outside the top 100 — and none in eight years.
Well, it’s time to add to that list: Williams was beaten by No. 116 Shelby Rogers 1-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5) in the Top Seed Open quarterfinals.
“It’s good to know,” Williams said, “I can play a lot, lot, lot better.”
She’ll want to do so soon: The U.S. Open begins Aug. 31.
Rogers, who is from South Carolina, took six of the last eight points Friday after trailing 3-1 in the tiebreaker to collect only her third career victory over a top-10 opponent.
She also reached her first WTA semifinal since 2016. Need to go even further back in the record books to find this sort of tournament exit for former No. 1 Williams: The owner of 23 Grand Slam singles titles hadn’t bowed out against someone so low in the rankings since No. 111 Virginie Razzano stunned her at the 2012 French Open.
Shortly after that, Williams teamed up with coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who still works with her and was among the few people in the stands Friday — fans are not allowed at the first tennis tournament in the U.S. since the outset of the coronavirus pandemic.
It had happened only three other times, including in qualifying at Quebec City all the way back in 1995, when Williams was making her professional debut at age 14. Now she’s 38; Rogers is 27.
“It’s every kid’s dream when they’re growing up, watching her play, to be able to do something like that,” Rogers said. “Weird circumstances, weird setting, but a win is a win and I know we’re all just happy to be back playing.”
This was the third consecutive three-setter for Williams at the hard-court Top Seed Open. She dropped the opening set of each of the others before coming back to win, including against older sister Venus in the second round.
On Friday, starting after a rain delay of more than two hours, Williams seemed on the way to a much simpler victory. She never faced a break point until serving while trailing 5-4 in the second set.
That’s when things shifted.
Rogers earned three break points — each one a set point — and converted the third when Williams dumped a forehand into the net.
There were no breaks in the third set, and after Williams took the early lead in the tiebreaker, she was her own undoing with miss after miss, including a long backhand return to end it.
“I kind of made it difficult for myself by making a plethora of unforced errors,” Williams said.
With social-distancing rules in place, the players didn’t meet at the net for the customary post-match handshake. As they headed to their sideline seats, Williams smiled. Rogers simply sat down and quickly shook a fist.
Now Rogers will face Jil Teichmann in the semifinals Saturday. Teichmann needed seven match points to reach the first hard-court semifinal of her career with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over CiCi Bellis.
Teichmann served for the victory at 5-3 in the second set and was one point from winning a half-dozen times in that game, but couldn’t convert, and Bellis eventually broke on her fourth chance.
In the next game, though, Teichmann got a seventh opportunity to end things and Bellis put a forehand into the net.
“That,” Teichmann said, “was tough mentally.”
The semifinal on the other side of the draw will be Jennifer Brady against 16-year-old Coco Gauff or No. 8 seed Ons Jabeur. Brady advanced by beating Marie Bouzkova 6-1, 6-2.