With 2017 nearing its close, it's time to decide what was the year's best match. Steve Tignor will relive his top 10 contests over the next two weeks—but which was your favorite? We want to know, so vote for your favorite match in our poll.
Tennis Channel will air the Top 3 matches with the most votes on December 31, in full.
Venus Williams d. Petra Kvitova 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (2), US Open quarterfinals
In the old days, before the Open era, the pros used to climb into their station wagons and set out on two-player barnstorming tours around the country. Night after night, in gym after gym, the same pair would unroll a canvas court and do battle. It sounds, frankly, like a reporter’s nightmare. Are there any two players you would want to watch face off 50 straight times?
Venus Williams and Petra Kvitova are well on their way to answering that question. These two women can’t seem to play a bad match against each other. Coming into their quarterfinal at the US Open this year, the American and the Czech had played six times, and all six times they’d gone to a third set. The previous three had ended either in a third-set tiebreaker, or 7-5 in the third. Their most recent encounter, at Wimbledon in 2014, was one of the best of that season, a taut, tense, mesmerizing affair between two power players hurling thunderbolts across Centre Court.
So expectations were high when Williams and Kvitova walked out for this night-session affair. Not only did the match itself promise fireworks, Venus and Kvitova had made themselves into two of the feel-good stories of the season. At 37, Venus had reached two Grand Slam finals. Eight months after being attacked in her home, Kvitova had come roaring back to beat Garbiñe Muguruza in the previous round.
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