NEW YORK
Serena Williams' U.S. Open title defense ended in bizarre, ugly fashion last night, when she was penalized a point on match point after yelling and shaking her racket in the direction of an official who called a foot fault.
Williams lost to unseeded, unranked Kim Clijsters 6-4, 7-5 in a taut semifinal.
With Williams serving at 5-6, 15-30 in the second set, she faulted on her first serve. On the second serve, a line judge called a foot fault, making it a double-fault. That made the score 15-40, putting Clijsters one point from victory.
Williams went over and shouted at the line judge, who walked over and reported it to the chair umpire. That led to the chair umpire awarding a penalty point to Clijsters, ending the match.
Williams already had been given a code violation warning when she broke her racket after losing the first set.
"She was called for a foot fault, and a point later, she said something to a line umpire, and it was reported to the chair, and that resulted in a point penalty," tournament referee Brian Earley explained. "And it just happened that point penalty was match point. It was a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct."
In the final, Clijsters will play No. 9 Caroline Wozniacki, who beat Yanina Wickmayer 6-3, 6-3.
Earlier in the day, Rafael Nadal finally got back on the court. Thirty minutes later, he was still looking for some action.
The third-seeded Nadal took advantage of an embarrassing collapse by No. 11 Fernando Gonzalez to put away his quarterfinal, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2), 6-0.
"I can't tell you, because I don't have the answer," Gonzalez said when asked to explain his quick disintegration.
Next up for Nadal is a semifinal today against No. 6 Juan Martin del Potro. The other men's semifinal pits No. 4 Novak Djokovic against No. 1 Roger Federer, who is seeking his sixth straight U.S. Open title.
Though Nadal's sore abdominals are still a concern, he certainly wasn't overtaxed in this match, as he headed into what could be a very long weekend.
"I'm OK," Nadal said. "I have only a little bit of a problem in the abdominal. That's it."
A match that had been a taut, well-played affair got postponed Thursday night with Nadal leading 3-2 in the second-set tiebreaker. They had to wait out an entire day of rain before coming back to the court to resume under overcast skies and temperatures in the 60s.
This was not more of the same.
Gonzalez opened the tiebreaker by spraying three forehands out, then pounded Nadal's serve into the net on set point. He lost two more points to start the third set before finally getting on the board. But after dropping the first game, Gonzalez, back in the Open quarterfinals for the first time since 2002, chucked his racket toward his chair en route to the changeover.
"When you come back in one situation like today, anything can happen, because it's a little bit of a lottery depending on the first two points," Nadal said. "The important thing is to be ready to accept everything, and try to arrive there knowing what to do."
And it kept getting worse for Gonzalez. Even a medical timeout to have tape cut off his ankles couldn't stop this slide.
Final numbers: 59 unforced errors for Gonzalez to 13 for Nadal; Nadal won 31 of the 43 points played after the restart. The whole affair took 34 minutes to wrap up.
"Normally if you lose the first two sets, I mean, you already have passed like one hour, two hours on court," Gonzalez said. "Today it was like three minutes, so..."
Next comes his match against Del Potro with a trip to the final on the line. Nadal, who needs the U.S. Open to complete a career Grand Slam, leads the head-to-head series 4-2. But del Potro has won the last two meetings, both outdoors on hard courts this year.
"He's good. I think he's a complete player, and it's always the same thing," Nadal said. "Try to be ready to put one more ball (back) than the rest."
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