US Open 2019: Belinda Bencic, Bianca Andreescu defuse their opponents’ raw power in contrasting styles to set up mouth-watering semi-final

“Power is power,” said Cersei Lannister to Littlefinger in the now-immortal line from Game of Thrones, and millions of people across the globe nodded vigorously in agreement. There’s something irresistible — and also unassailable — about raw power, and that is as true in the fantasy-land created by George RR Martin as it is in the real world.

Is it also true on the tennis court though?

Donna Vekic and Elise Mertens brought plenty of raw power to the US Open women’s quarter-finals on Wednesday, hoping to use it to reach their maiden semis in New York. But their opponents had more answers than poor old Littlefinger could ever muster, and by the end of the day, they were the ones having the last laugh.

The day started with Belinda Bencic being pitted against Vekic’s arsenal of big serves and bigger forehands, which had surprisingly never before seen a Slam quarter-final. The two women, separated by just a year, are good friends off the court and have been practice partners too, so they knew a thing or two about each other’s game. That probably explains why there were so few inroads in the early going, as neither faced a break point up to 4-4.

But while they were neck-to-neck on the scoreboard, there was a marked difference in each player’s modus operandi for survival. Vekic constantly looked to take the initiative in the points, using her 1-2 punch to great effect and breaking open rallies with her deadly forehand. Bencic, meanwhile played reactive tennis for the most part, trying to catch Vekic’s shots before they gained momentum and redirect the ball into uncomfortable positions for the Croat.

It was Vekic’s aggressive muscling of the ball that paid off first. She put enough pressure on Bencic’s second serve to elicit two double faults and a backhand error in the ninth game to get the break, and suddenly the set was on her racquet. But Bencic, who had won just one point on Vekic’s first serve until that stage, summoned all of her anticipation skills to turn that stat around. She won two of the three points off Vekic’s first serve in that crucial game, and stole the break right back.

Vekic continued to aim for the corners with her powerful groundstrokes even after that, but it was easy to see that the needle had tilted irrevocably in Bencic’s favor. The Swiss started reading everything a little better, holding her ground at the baseline even as the Croat desperately looked for an opening. That subtle shift was enough to give her control of the match for good.

Bencic’s ability to redirect pace by taking the ball on the rise is among the best in the world right now, and the quarter-final against Vekic was further evidence of that. By the second set, she was effortlessly patrolling the baseline and eliciting errors from the Croat; the decisive break came at 3-3, and she added another at 6-3 to seal the match.

A few hours later, Bianca Andreescu was facing the same problems against Mertens as Bencic was in the early going against Vekic. Mertens is perhaps not as big a hitter as Vekic, but she is steadier than the Croat, and sometimes that can be an even more lethal recipe for success.

In the first set, Andreescu tried to outhit Mertens by going for winners from inadvisable positions, but only succeeded in making a bunch of unforced errors. The Belgian, on her part, stuck to what she does best: Hit the ball with pace and depth, and go for the down-the-line change-up whenever the opportunity comes along.

For a while, Mertens’ simple strategy easily trumped Andreescu’s eclectic one. The Canadian possesses plenty of firepower herself, but she doesn’t use it as relentlessly as Mertens — and that lack of rhythmic motion is probably why she missed so many of her big groundstrokes. Andreescu first tried outhitting Mertens; when that didn’t work, she tried moving her around with angles; when that didn’t work, she brought out her famous drop shots.

That last ploy didn’t work either, and Mertens took the first set 6-3.

The Belgian’s backhand, especially the down-the-line one, is one of the best in the business, and for a set and a half, it was the single most influential shot on the court. But it’s not by accident that Andreescu has won so many matches this year, even from seemingly hopeless positions. The 19-year-old is a thinker in the truest sense of the term, and by the middle of the second set she had figured out how to deal with Mertens’ controlled aggression.

Instead of allowing Mertens to set up camp on the baseline and choose which direction to go, Andreescu started looping the ball high and out of the Belgian’s strike zone. She used the inside-out forehand to great effect, pulling her opponent off the court with its depth and then putting away the short response. She also started using the backhand slice more liberally, making sure that Mertens kept getting different looks in each rally.

Almost all of those tactics worked to perfection. While Mertens was largely dictating the play in the first set with her forceful patterns, she was made to repeatedly change her swing within each point over the next two — and that predictably threw her off her game. The Belgian hit 12 winners in the first set, but managed just 10 in the next two sets combined.

By the end of the match, Andreescu’s anything-can-happen style of play was back to its freewheeling best. She lost just six points on her serve in the third set — a majority of them in a cagey game at 1-1 — and assumed almost total control of the longer rallies. Eventually, Mertens’ legs gave way, and Andreescu finished the match with a flurry of winners.

Both Bencic and Andreescu were faced with heavy-hitting opponents, and they both came away unscathed — albeit in very different ways. They are both touch artists, but while Bencic uses her feel to catch the ball early and time it to perfection, Andreescu uses it to hit wildly contrasting shots with practically the same preparation and grip. It is perhaps fitting, therefore, that Bencic and Andreescu will next play each other, in what will be a maiden Slam semi-final for both.

The match won’t present them the raw power challenge that they had to face on Wednesday, but that may make it even tougher to deal with. Power is power for the most part, but sometimes, the reaction to power is even deadlier — and it will be fascinating to see who reacts better in their mouth-watering semi-final match-up.