Sloane Stephens defeated fellow American Venus Williams 6-1, 0-6 and 7-5 to reach her fist US Open final.
Stephens, 24, the seventh player to reach the US Open semifinals despite not being ranked in the top 50, will play her first Grand Slam final against the winner of the match between Madison Keys and CoCo Vandeweghe.
Stephens, ranked 83rd in the world, is playing in her sixth US Open. She has a 1-0 record against Keys, but is 1-3 in her career against Vandeweghe.
This was the first time since 1981 that four women reached the US Open semifinal.
The last time there was an All-American final at the US Open women’s tournament was in 2002 when sisters Serena and Venus Williams faced each other in the final.
Venus, who has seven Grand Slam titles and played in the US Open 19 times, failed to reach her fifth US Open final, a tournament she’s won twice (2000 and 2001).
Stephens has a 2-0 record against Venus. Her first was a 7-6 and 6-1 win at the opening round of the 2015 Roland Garros.
Stephens won the first set in just 24 minutes playing solid tennis from the back of the court, scoring six winners and taking advantage of 17 unforced errors by Williams.
But in the second set Venus roared back, with powerful strokes that helped her score 11 winners and sweep Stephens in the second set.
Both players were saving their best tennis for the last set, which resulted in a spectacular 73-minute competitive tennis show.
Stephens jumped ahead to a 2-0 lead after breaking Venus’s serve in the first game and holding her serve in the second. In the third game Venus held her serve and broke Stephens’ in the fourth to make it all 2-2.
The oldest Williams however, perhaps began to feel her age as she started to look tired and allowed Stephens to break her serve in the seventh game to make it 4-3 in favor of the 24-year-old.
Although Williams recovered and made it 4-4 it was Stephens who was setting the tone of the set. She however failed to take advantage of this and the more experienced Williams managed to keep things even and the score was 5-5 after 10 games.
In the 11th game and with Venus serving, Stephens used her powerful right-handed strokes to win her third break of the set and take a 6-5 lead. In the twelfth Stephens’ serve was flawless and secured the shocking win.
Stephens had 17 winners while Williams had 28, but Williams had 51 unforced errors against Stephens’ 27.
