Italy’s 26th-ranked Flavia Pennetta stunned two-time Wimbledon champion and Czech fifth seed Petra Kvitova 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 to reach her second US Open semi-final.
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Pennetta, 3-1 all-time against Halep and 2-2 against Azarenka, matched her best Grand Slam run from the 2013 US Open semi-finals, where she lost to Azarenka.
“I’m really happy right now,” Pennetta said. “I was just trying to fight every ball, running and push everything I can.
“I didn’t think to get through this match. In the second set I was playing and playing – it was unbelievable.”
Kvitova’s ouster removes a potential threat to Serena Williams that delivered one of only two Williams losses this year when they met in May on Madrid clay.
Kvitova, the first Czech woman in the US Open’s last eight since Daja Bedanova in 2001, made 60 unforced errors to only 16 for Pennetta.
Kvitova also had nine double faults against only four aces in hot conditions at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“It’s not just the heat,” Pennetta said. “It’s the tension for the match, for what you think, what you have to be, have to do – it’s everything in your mind. You have to take it out and just play.”
Pennetta, 33, improved to 4-3 against left-hander Kvitova, 25, the 2011 and 2014 Wimbledon champion whose run was still her best at a US Open.
Kvitova, who had dropped only one service game in four matches, was broken at the start but broke back in the next game and rolled to a 5-2 lead.
Kvitova, her upper right leg taped, struggled serving for the set, double faulting on set point and to surrender a break chance, and Pennetta smacked a backhand winner to pull within 5-4, only to double fault away the set herself in the next game.
After an early exchange of breaks in the second set, Pennetta broke on a backhand service return winner for a 5-4 lead and fought off two break points to hold in the 10th game to force a third set.
Kvitova smacked a forehand long to hand Pennetta a break and a 3-2 lead, broke again in the seventh game and won after two hours and 23 minutes when Kvitova hit a forehand long.
