Serena Williams fell to Karolina Pliskova in the final

Serena Williams, out of the Australian Open quarterfinals

The 24th Grand Slam title of Serena Williams will have to wait. The American tennis player did not capitalize four points for a match and ended with a defeat in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open.

Karolina Pliskova defeated Williams, 37, with a score of 6-4, 4-6 and 7-5, in a game that lasted more than two hours. This is the second time that the Czech American tennis legend trips in a major tournament after the Open United States in 2016.

During that event, the former world number one beat both Williams and her older sister, Venus.

Williams led 5-1 in the third set on Wednesday, but the situation changed completely when he turned his ankle in his first match point in that seventh game-changing direction.

Immediately afterward he committed a double fault and his service completely vanished; Williams lost the next 10 points in his service for the rest of the game.

Pliskova saved three more match points with 4-5, one with an impressive winning shot.

Losing in the quarterfinals is extremely rare for Williams: he had a record of 14-1 at this stage in his last 15 appearances in the big slam.

His last defeat at this stage was also in Melbourne, in 2013. On that occasion, injuries also played a role against Sloane Stephens.

After beating world number one Simona Halep of Romania by 6-1, 4-6 and 6-4, Serena Williams' path to the Australian Open title seemed almost flattened and unimpeded.

Even in his match of quarterfinals played this morning before the Czech Karolina Pliskova in the Rod Laver Arena of Melbourne Park, that idea was reaffirmed at every moment with the running of the meeting.

Despite having lost the first set, Serena recovered in the second and began to impose clearly in the third. However, with a 5-1 favor in that quarter, he squandered four match points, let his rival grow and ended up losing 6-4, 4-6 and 7-5 and saying goodbye to his dream of reaching his twenty-fourth title of Grand Slam.

Karen Khachanov proclaims champion for the first time in a Masters 1000

The 22-year-old Russian inflicts the first defeat in 87 days (7-5 ​​and 6-4, 1h 37m) at number one and wins the most important trophy of his career at Paris-Bercy. With a promising future, it is already 11th in the ranking.

Although Novak Djokovic is a magnificent player, as far as gestures and signals are concerned on the track, this Sunday his face betrayed him. During the 1h 37 minutes of the final against Karen Khachanov, his face said constantly that he had no cards and could not see the play. And it is that Nole ran into in front of the Russian that for some time emits signals and now, winning post day after day, already claims a gap between the most Granado of the circuit. With his impressive 1.98 and a steel right, the Muscovite (22 years old) disarmed the Serbian and won the Paris-Bercy trophy, a fourth of a race that continues on the same line to be important.

For a long time, Khachanov has been giving warnings. In the last two years he has left significant clues and this year he was not too far from beating Rafael Nadal in New York. Now, on the hard track of Bercy, he closed the circle that he drew since the beginning of the week, successively distressed high-caliber tennis players like John Isner, Alexander Zverev, Dominic Thiem and in the final (7-5 ​​and 6-4) at the very same Djokovic, who chained 22 consecutive victories and 87 days without knowing the defeat, snatching the number one Nadal. The last time he had given a game was in Montreal, on August 9 against the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Now, the one who stumbled was another young man who swiped three times the service and knew how to maintain the distances with a relentless drive and the power of serve. In this way, Khachanov achieved the most lustrous victory of his career - before, rewards in Moscow, Marseille, and Chengdu - and ascends to the eleventh place in the ranking, calling for a space among the strongest. His present and his future are acquiring brightness, while Djokovic took a jug of cold water because he was the big favorite. He did not find a way to stop his rival and was left without another Masters 1000, but he will land in the Masters Cup (from November 11 to 18) with an income of 565 points and 1 on the back.

The Russian tennis player Karen Khachanov won the Serbian Novak Djokovic in the final of the 1000 Masters in Paris, which crowned for the first time the champion of this tournament. Khachanov prevailed ... The Russian tennis player Karen Khachanov won the Serbian Novak Djokovic in the final of the 1000 Masters in Paris, which crowned for the first time the champion of this tournament.

It is also likely that the Serb was suffering the side effects of his epic three-set victory over Roger Federer in the semifinal on Saturday, but no merit can be deduced from the outstanding quality of the offensive game displayed by Khachanov. After scoring his fourth consecutive victory of the week over top-10 players, Khachanov - whose muscular build resembles his childhood hero Marat Safin, the last Russian winner in Paris - lifted the most important trophy of his thrilling career on Sunday.

Khachanov prevailed with partial of 7-5 and 6-4, in an hour and 36 minutes, before "Djoker", who has won the event four times and obtained his pass to the final, after defeating in two sets the Austrian Dominic Thiem by 4-6 and 1-6. Djokovic reached the final of Paris after facing in "quarters" the Croatian Marin Čilić, where he won in three sets (6-4, 2-6 and 3-6), and eliminating in the semifinals the number three ranking of the Association of Professional tennis players (ATP), the Swiss Roger Federer (6-7, 7-5 and 6-7). With this victory, the now number 12 of the ATP classification obtained his first Masters 1000 title in his career, with only 22 years. While "Nole" got the first place to be proclaimed as the best tennis player of the 2018 season of the ATP.

After catsuit debate: Serena Williams beats back in the tutu

Just last week, the catsuit that Serena Williams wore at this year's French Open was banned by the French tennis federation FFT and its president Bernard Giudicelli with new dress codes.

The catsuit had not only fashionable reasons but primarily health. After the birth of her daughter, Serena Williams suffered from blood clots. The compression suit was designed to promote the circulation of the tennis player. Serena Williams reacted calmly to the ban. At a press conference at the US Open, she said, "Guys, everything's alright!" And: "When it comes to fashion, I do not want to be a repeat offender."

In the midst of the controversy over her clothing, the American tennis player responded with irony to the censorship of her clothing. After the controversy that led to her return to competition last year, when she appeared in Roland Garros in her postpartum costume, which consisted of a black jumpsuit that covered practically her entire body, the tennis player Serena Williams played her first US game. Open with a tutu.

To all this, Nike offered his support with an equally powerful message on his Twitter account: "Superheroes can take their suit, but never their powers." Without a doubt, Serena Williams will continue to be our superhero, with or without attire. Serena was involved in a sexist controversy in recent days, as a result of statements by the president of the French Tennis Federation, Bernard Giudicelli, who said that the Roland Garros tournament will release a dress code next year to regulate the dress of the players because "sometimes it has come very far".

In an interview for the issue number 500 of Tennis magazine, Giudicelli pointed to the postpartum suit that Williams wore this year in the Parisian open and that the American said that made her feel like a superhero. " It will not be accepted, you have to respect the sport and the place, " said Giudicelli.

After the statements, the American, one of the best tennis players in history, decided to answer with a strong irony: "When it comes to fashion, you do not want to be a recidivist. " He added: "It will be a while until it reappears," he said of the black catsuit.

The American tennis player Serena Williams returned to the courts with a full suite of black lycra. Bernard Giudicelli, the organizer of Roland Garros, described his clothes as "unacceptable". Here you discover why. The shocking piece was news for days, initially to resemble the characters in the movie 'Black Panther'. However, it later turned into bitter statements: "I think sometimes we have come a long way, this year's Serena Williams team will not be accepted anymore, we have to respect the game and the place," said Bernard Giudicelli, president of the French Tennis Federation and organizer of the Roland Garros.

The messages against were not long in coming, because it seems that Giudicelli did not take into account that the dress of Serena Williams went beyond a fashionable concept; It was a matter of health. The suit was designed by Nike especially for the tennis player with the function of preventing the formation of blood clots, a condition suffered by Williams.

The American is the most successful tennis player in the world. Her intoxicating success statistics: she has won 23 Grand Slam titles in the course of her career! And incidentally, the important places in the tennis world with lots of colors and extravagant outfits conquered. Skewy and pitty white was The color in tennis for decades. The women in short skirts, the men in shorts. Everything as clean and unobtrusive as possible. But tennis goddess Serena started releasing her hard-core muscles from the standard outfits pretty early.