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The 2011 US Open women's final will see 3-time former champion Serena Williams collide with 27-year old Australian veteran Samantha Stosur on Sunday. Williams, a 13-time Grand Slam champion, pummelled world no.1 Caroline Wozniacki 6-2, 6-4 in just an hour and 26 minutes to book a long awaited return to the big stage. Earlier in the evening, Stosur booked her place in her second career Grand Slam final with a hard fought 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 win over world no.92 Angelique Kerber of Germany, who had done exceptionally well to make it so far in the draw.

For Caroline Wozniacki to have any chance of 'upsetting' Serena, the American would need to have an off-day on her serve and the Dane would need to do an incredible amount of fetching from the back of the court to make Williams hit one extra ball. The latter happened, the former didn't. Serena landed 62% of her first serves and predictably won almost 80% of the points. Wozniacki worked exceptionally hard from the back of the court, but just didn't have enough weapons in her arsenal to trouble Serena. A total of 5 winners in 2 sets of tennis is hardly becoming of a world no.1. Serena on her part powered home 34 winners and raced to the net on every opportunity to finish off points, winning 17 of 21 points on her advances.

Wozniacki also struggled on her serve in the opening set, only holding on to it once in 4 games. Serena teed off at will on both first and second serves, and though Wozniacki was able to get one break back, she soon found herself a set down 6-2.

Having produced 10 unforced errors to no winners in the opening set, Wozniacki played a lot better in the second set, especially in her own service games. She went for a bit more on her first serve, dropping just 4 points on it, and also cut down her unforced errors to just 2. An early break for Serena though in the fourth game set her on course to seal a comfortable win, but Wozniacki stayed firm and broke Williams when she served for the match at 5-3. However, Caroline was to win just one more point as Serena broke right back in the following game, sealing the win with a powerful return of serve which the young Dane was not able to keep alive. Serena thus advanced to her 5th US Open final, and will be the overwhelming favourite to pick up her 14th Grand Slam title, having not lost in a major final since Wimbledon 2008.

The Stosur - Kerber match looked like a repeat telecast of Sam's early round battles, all of which had a rather familiar story line. The Aussie blew away the 22-year old rookie German in the opening set in just half-an-hour, taking it 6-3 on the back of some solid serving, and just a solitary break on her only opportunity to do the same.

The second set saw a complete reversal of fortunes as Kerber showed exactly why she has come so far in the US Open, making just 3 errors and dropping only 5 points on serve all set. Stosur in contrast lost the potency on her serve, winning just 2 of 10 points when she missed her first serve and conceding as many as 7 break point opportunities of which the German took 2.

The decider though saw Aussie Sam regain her composure and race to a 5-0 lead before an all too familiar sign of the famous Stosur bout of nerves kicked in. Kerber broke Stosur when she tried to serve for the match, held serve and then amazingly had another 4 break points in the 8th game when Sam tried to close out the match a second time. On this occasion though Stosur hung in and wrapped up the match in just short of 2 hours to book a return to a Grand Slam final for the second time in her career. She will be hoping to go one better than her 2010 French Open final defeat when she takes on the all-conquering Serena in Sunday's showpiece.

Women's Singles - Semifinals
[28] Serena Williams(USA) def. [1] Caroline Wozniacki(DEN) 6-2 6-4
[9] Samantha Stosur(AUS) def. Angelique Kerber(GER) 6-3 2-6 6-2

File Photograph by Dan Galbraith / DetailsGroup