http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/sports/tennis/07openwomen.html 2016-09-07 02:52:24 Angelique Kerber Shows Her Poise, Then Her Dominance Kerber, seeded second, survived a nerve-racking first set against No. 7 Roberta Vinci before cruising through the second to advance to the semifinals. === When many might have panicked — including, perhaps, a younger version of herself — Angelique Kerber remained calm. And after Kerber survived a nerve-racking first set, she cruised through the second to beat seventh-seeded Roberta Vinci, 7-5, 6-0, in the quarterfinals of the Kerber will next face Caroline Wozniacki, who defeated Anastasija Sevastova, 6-0, 6-2, later Tuesday. Three times, Vinci was up a break in the first set, using her trademark short slices to keep Kerber off-balance. But Kerber, the second seed, ultimately won the final nine games of the match. She committed 22 unforced errors in the first set, but only three in the second. Kerber, who also reached the semifinals at the 2011 Open, said she once might not have had the mental makeup to endure those first-set frustrations. “I think I’ve grown a lot in the last few years,” she said, “and also with my mentality, that I’m staying more positive and believing in my game. I think that, yeah, right now I can win matches like that.” Against Vinci, patience was paramount. “Wait for your shots,” Kerber said of her strategy, “because she is actually a good mover and she brings a lot of balls back with her slice as well. So I was trying to be moving good, and yeah, keeping my eyes on the balls and going for it because the spin is a little bit different than when you play against others; they are just hitting the balls really strong.” Kerber’s poise Tuesday was in steep contrast to Serena Williams’s visible disquietude against Vinci in the Open semifinals last year, when Williams won the first set with ease but grew increasingly flummoxed by the variety of Vinci’s shots. Vinci, who had struggled with a tendon injury during this tournament, said she had thought of that stunning upset as inspiration before Tuesday’s match. “This morning in my mind, I said, of course: ‘O.K., try your best. Tough opponent like Serena last year — you have nothing to lose. Play your game; try to enjoy,’” Vinci said. “I knew that I was in the quarterfinal after a lot of problems, but I was fighting also today.” Kerber, ranked second in the world, has a chance to unseat Williams for the top spot. That goal may not carry the same kind of pressure Williams felt going for a calendar-year Grand Slam last year, but Kerber’s unflappability so far has still come as something of a surprise. Kerber, 28, has been known to succumb to stress before. At the year-end championships in Singapore last year, she fell apart after hearing that she needed to win only one set in her final round-robin match to advance to the knockout stage. Both Kerber and her coach, Torben Beltz, have cited that match as a turning point. Now, Beltz said, Kerber has no trouble focusing on the task at hand. “I think our job is to try to make it simple and to keep everything routine,” Beltz said. “We have routine practices on the off-days, and on the match days we do all the same routine stuff we do all the time. I think she handles all the pressure very, very good because there’s a lot of pressure with No. 1. We know that, but she’s handling it perfectly. She’s winning, so everything is perfect.” Williams needs to reach the final to keep the No. 1 ranking. If Kerber makes it there as well, Williams will need to beat her to stay on top. Five years ago, it would have been difficult to imagine Kerber being within reach of the No. 1 spot. She had not advanced beyond the third round at her first 15 Grand Slam events and arrived at the 2011 U.S. Open ranked 92nd. But she began to reel off win after win before a loss to Samantha Stosur ended her improbable run. “Now I’m a completely different player, I think,” said Kerber, who beat Williams in this year’s Australian Open final for her first major title and was the runner-up to Williams at Wimbledon in July. “I’m going out, I have a lot of confidence, I know how to win big matches, and I know how it feels playing on the stadium. “I’m also enjoying it more than years ago,” she added. “I’m trying to be going there and enjoying the atmosphere and also win the matches. I mean, years ago I came here, and I had nothing to lose, and my goal was playing good. Now my goal is winning the matches, and this is a little bit different.”