{"id":1546,"date":"2017-01-24T08:24:39","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T13:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordontennis.com\/?p=1546"},"modified":"2017-01-24T11:46:50","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T16:46:50","slug":"coco-real-vandeweghe-outlasts-muguruza-reach-first-slam-semifinal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2017\/01\/24\/coco-real-vandeweghe-outlasts-muguruza-reach-first-slam-semifinal\/","title":{"rendered":"Coco is for Real! Vandeweghe Breezes Past Muguruza to Reach her First Slam Semifinal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You won\u2019t easily find a player with a personality stronger than <strong>Coco<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>Vandeweghe<\/strong>. Her on-court attitude, made of frequent racquet smashes and harsh personal comments\u2013-as her comments on Twitter, especially the ones supporting Trump, have made Vandeweghe of those players you either love or dislike at all. I honestly don\u2019t think there is someone who feels indifferent about Vandeweghe. There are some&#8211;like myself&#8211;in love with her game and her personality, and those who really can\u2019t stand her.<\/p>\n<p>However, like her or dislike her, Coco Vandeweghe knocked out <strong>Garbine Muguruza<\/strong>, as well, after <strong>Angelique Kerber<\/strong>, and reached her first ever Slam semifinal at the <strong>Australian Open<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Given her ancestry, it\u2019s no surprise at all Vandeweghe is doing well at sports! Indeed, her grandfather was a professional basketball player, as well as her uncle, whereas her mother was an Olympic swimmer. Vandeweghe&#8217;s success, though, is in tennis.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0win against Muguruza was her 10<sup>th<\/sup> career win against Top 10 players, which is quite impressive given she scored her 9<sup>th<\/sup> just two days ago against Kerber!<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/632534466\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/632534466?et=uwbJoVUgR-duoxF_2tvr2g&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=UovtYM6yOZcuaeqEVVeZCt7EH5K4SyPBKSCiyRGeEXw=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n<p>With <strong>Mirjana Lucic-Baroni<\/strong> yet to play her quarterfinal match, one of my beloved <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordontennis.com\/2017\/01\/21\/unseeded-women-australian-open\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unseeded players<\/a> managed to reach the semifinals of the first Grand Slam of the year!<\/p>\n<p>Vandeweghe\u2019s run in the tournament has been thoroughly impressive. She dropped only one set to <strong>Eugenie Bouchard<\/strong> in the third round, and she managed some unbelievable upsets.<\/p>\n<p>Starting from the first round, she defeated Italian former Top 10 <strong>Roberta Vinci<\/strong>, a player whose game is in trouble against Coco\u2019s powerful serves and baseline shots. Her second round was the only opportunity for the American to breath a little bit during the tournament. Indeed, since she defeated a seed in the first round, she therefore could benefit from a seed\u2019s draw in the second one, when she beat <strong>Pauline Parmentier<\/strong> without many issues.<\/p>\n<p>In the third round, then, she survived a close three-setter against Bouchard, one of the most in-form players of the beginning of the season, who seemed to have found again the game that brought her to Slam semifinals and final back in 2014&#8211;not enough, however, to outlast the American in a match that was pretty poorly-played on both sides.<\/p>\n<p>From the fourth round on, her Melbourne journey has shown the entire tennis world her potential, along with her game. First, she upset world #1 Angelique Kerber in straight sets, killing the German\u2019s resistance with power and hitting 30 winners in 17 games! After the match point, she opened her arms as to say: \u201cReally, somebody doubted I could do it?\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>And then, two days later, the American knocked out Garbine Muguruza, who was the favorite to reach the final in the upper part of the draw, with the first seed out of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Once more, Vandeweghe didn\u2019t drop a set in the whole match, eventually bagelling the Spaniard in the second one, hitting 31 winners in 16 games. What\u2019s most impressive, though, is the fact that she didn&#8217;t lose her serve throughout the match, winning 88% of points on first serve. This stat is probably going to be the key, if she is determined to go deeper in the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>As she stated after the quarterfinal match, she is not satisfied with semifinals, since she feels she can perform better. No surprise, given her personality, which may sound a bit arrogant, maybe. However, if we take a look at her accomplishments these two weeks, Coco going further in the tournament seems reasonable, rather than utopian.<\/p>\n<p>Next up is <strong>Venus Williams<\/strong>, who at the age of 36 managed to reach her second Slam semifinal in less than a year, her 20<sup>th<\/sup> overall. The elder American outlasted Russian <strong>Anastasia Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova<\/strong> in straight sets, and is yet to lose a single set.<\/p>\n<p>Venus took advantage of a really favorable draw, with <strong>Simona Halep<\/strong>\u2019s early exit, and, apart from the Russian, hasn\u2019t faced a seeded player in the whole tournament. Therefore, she is going to be a bit fresher than her opponent in the semis, and this may be one of the keys of the match.<\/p>\n<p>However, it\u2019s hard to make a preview. On the one hand, Coco is on fire, playing with a lot of confidence, feeling that she\u2019s unbeatable. On the other hand, Venus Williams stated that if she is here after all her career, it\u2019s because she feels she has a real chance to win, and doesn\u2019t want it to be wasted. The pleasure of seeing a Williams sister\u2019s final is starting to become a bit more real, even though <strong>Serena<\/strong> has yet to play her quarterfinal against impressive and still undefeated in 2017 <strong>Johanna Konta<\/strong>. If it\u2019s going to happen, it\u2019s going to be a gift for the tennis world.<\/p>\n<p>However, Coco deserves the opportunity to play her first Slam final, after a tournament like the one she\u2019s played.<br \/>\nI honestly don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen in this all-American semifinal, but what I know, is that it must be watched, since it\u2019s going to be a battle of power and resistance.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/632535268\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/632535268?et=A0PZZ0jgQsR7pScK2v5JTA&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=Cq0zvEvnx0U-g32bstwfdQrDNb3F6_gbuz7Targgm88=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You won\u2019t easily find a player with a personality stronger than Coco\u00a0Vandeweghe. Her on-court attitude, made of frequent racquet smashes and harsh personal comments\u2013-as her comments on Twitter, especially the ones supporting Trump, have made Vandeweghe of those players you either love or dislike at all. I honestly don\u2019t think there is someone who feels [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1665,"featured_media":1549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2,4],"tags":[385,205,430,52,496,15],"class_list":["post-1546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australian-open","category-featured","category-wta","tag-2017-australian-open","tag-australian-open","tag-coco-vandeweghe","tag-grand-slam","tag-melbourne","tag-wta"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1665"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}