Sloane Stephens continues American domination as she defeats Anastasija Sevastova to reach US Open semi-finals

Stephens joins Venus Williams in the semi-finals after continuing her incredible return from an 11-month injury lay-off

Sloane Stephens celebrates her victory over Anastasija Sevastova (Getty)

Some players can wilt under the pressure of playing in the biggest arena in world tennis, but the current generation of American women clearly love competing in Arthur Ashe Stadium. Less than 24 hours after Madison Keys came from behind in the final set to beat Elina Svitolina, Sloane Stephens repeated the feat to overcome Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova and became the first woman to book her place in the US Open semi-finals.

Stephens, who returned to competition less than two months ago after an 11-month break following foot surgery, was trailing 3-1 in the deciding set but went on to close out a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 victory after an intriguing contest that lasted two and a half hours.

The 24-year-old American, who played in her only previous Grand Slam final at the 2013 Australian Open, has had some outstanding results since making her comeback at Wimbledon. She reached the semi-finals in the tournaments at both Toronto and Cincinnati, proving her fitness by winning all four of her matches that went to three sets, and has maintained that form here.

“I’m getting teary-eyed,” Stephens said afterwards in an on-court interview. “This is just incredible. When I started my comeback at Wimbledon I could never have even dreamed of something like this happening, having these results and then making the semi-finals of my home Slam, my favourite tournament. It’s indescribable.”

She added: “I just told myself to keep fighting. I’ve been playing so well and so consistently and I’ve just been staying so calm on the court. I knew that if I just stuck with it and played my game and continued to stick in every point I was going to have an opportunity and that’s just what I did.

“A month ago, before I started winning a lot of matches, I was really worried. I was worried about my protected ranking and not having enough tournaments and not being able to play. There were just so many things that I was worried about.

“But once I just realised that my life is good, I play tennis and I have fun every day, that just relieved a lot of stress. I was finally able to play, play loose, play my game and then, bam, here we are – in the semi-finals.”

Sevastova is no stranger to injury problems either. The current world No 17 retired in 2013 after a series of injury issues, did not play any Grand Slam tournaments between the 2011 US Open and the 2016 Australian Open but returned to competition in 2015 as her fitness improved.

Stephens returned from an 11-month injury absence at Wimbledon (Getty)

The 27-year-old Latvian has won the first two titles of her career this year and enjoyed her best Grand Slam run at this tournament 12 months ago when she knocked out Garbine Muguruza and Johanna Konta en route to the quarter-finals, though her campaign ended in pain when she suffered an ankle injury before losing to Caroline Wozniacki.

This time around Sevastova beat Carina Witthoeft, Kateryna Kozlova and Donna Vekic without dropping a set before enjoying her finest moment when she came back from a set down to beat Maria Sharapova in the fourth round.

The quarter-final was a welcome change from some of the baseline slugging contests that have become a feature of the modern women’s game. Neither player has the power of the sport’s bigger hitters, but both have a lovely touch and move well. At times it seemed to be a battle to decide who could hit the best drop shots. They needed to be good given the speed with which both women chased them down.

Anastasija Sevastova reacts during her defeat by Sloane Stephens (Getty)

Stephens got the better of three breaks of serve in the opening four games and saw out the first set after 45 minutes. Sevastova had on-court treatment for a problem with her right leg after the seventh game and appeared to be struggling with her movement, but came out strongly at the start of the second set. Having broken serve in the fourth game, Sevastova served out to level the match, converting her first set point when Stephens hit a backhand wide.

Sevastova drew first blood in the deciding set with a break in the third game and led 3-1, but Stephens broke back for 3-3. It was the first of three successive breaks of serve before the set went to a tie-break, which Stephens won 7-4, completing the victory with a backhand winner down the line. By the end, Sevastova had won 105 points in the match to Stephens’ 103, but the only statistic that mattered was the final scoreline.

In the semi-finals Sevastova will meet the winner of Tuesday’s later meeting, Venus Williams, after she beat Petra Kvitova 6-3, 3-6, 7-6. In Wednesday’s remaining quarter-finals Karolina Pliskova will take on Coco Vandeweghe while Madison Keys will face Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi.