NEW YORK - The match between Jennifer Capriati and Serena Williams had the feel of a final, but in truth, it was an intense quarterfinal outing with a semifinal slot at stake.

It had all the drama a tennis fan could want and lived up to the usual exciting standards of a great match under the lights at Flushing Meadows.

Capriati secured a 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 win, but Serena still leads in head-to-head matches 10-7. Capriati, however, has won three of four encounters against Serena this year, and, after losing eight in a row, she has another chance to finally reach a U.S. Open final. But before the final, Capriati has to take care of Elena Dementieva of Russia in the semifinals. I am quite sure that Jennifer sees this as an opportunity to redeem herself here at the Open after losing a semifinal thriller against Justine Henin-Hardenne last year.

But before we can discuss what this match meant for Capriati, we have to talk about the four crucial calls that went against Serena in the final set that should have been in her favor. Those calls were the only thing that spoiled the match. That left a really bad taste in the mouth, which is a shame because this should be a match that wasn’t marred by controversy.

The first bad call came at deuce on Serena’s serve in the first game of the third set was clearly a ball that landed inside the line. Quite literally, it’s the worst call I’ve ever seen. Serena’s ball was good, the linesperson even called it in, so I have no idea why the umpire, Mariana Alves of Portugal, changed that call.

It was such a well contested match, there was so much drama, there was so many changes of momentum, it deserved better. Yes, it was an uneven match. Part of it was high quality, and parts of it lacked some luster. Most of all, it was just an unfortunate way to end a match. Asked about it afterwards, Capriati mistakenly said that it didn’t matter because Serena won the game anyway, but that isn’t the case since she did lose her serve in that first game and that put her behind at the outset of the final set.

I thought it was absolutely incredible how Serena kept her composure in that final set. Most especially on that first bad call, and I really don’t know how she did that. While you could tell she was upset, she behaved very well considering the significance of the moment. You could tell that Serena and Capriati thought that Serena’s shot was in since they moved to the other side of the court to play the next point. 

After the match, Serena said she thought the umpire was temporarily insane. I think the umpire was temporarily blind if she couldn’t see the mistakes she was making on those calls.

Capriati handled the situation the way she was supposed to on those calls. It is not her job to call the lines; it’s her job to play the calls. All she could do is go out there and fight her heart out and that’s exactly what she did.

Capriati started out slowly in the match by not driving her balls. In contrast, Serena started out very quickly, but that in no way prevented Capriati from turning things around. Capriati showed emotion, patience, determination in finding her way to victory. And her body language spoke volumes – she was there to win.

If I was Serena and I could change one thing in the match, it would have been that first game of the second set. At that point, she had huge momentum and was totally in control of the match, but losing her serve in that game cost her dearly. Serena had a number of unforced errors in that game and losing serve at that point opened the door for Capriati to step into the match.

It will be interesting to see how Capriati handles this moment and I wonder if this year’s French Open offers any clues. As I remember back to the French Open, I was absolutely convinced that it was Capriati's tournament, but she fell apart to eventual champion Anastasia Myskina 6-2, 6-2 to put the Russian in position to win her first Grand Slam trophy.

She’s definitely going to have to come out and continue to play at the top of her game to score a first final berth at the Open. She’s going to have to handle her serve like she did against Serena tonight – she had an unbelievable first serve percentage of 74 and she needs to keep duplicating that since it is her serve that has often let her down in the past.

One reason that Capriati needs to be careful in the semifinal is that Elena is no longer unfamiliar in playing in the final rounds at a Grand Slam. It’s quite possible that the French Open, where she played just a horrible final to Myskina has helped her for the future, now she’s had that experience.

In the end, I can’t help but feel badly for Serena because it’s just a horrible way to lose a match. But Jennifer played tough tennis tonight, and now it’s going to be very interesting to see where she takes this opportunity.

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