Serena Williams fell victim to one of the biggest shocks in tennis history at the US Open, said two-time champion Tracy Austin.

Serena Williams fell victim to one of the biggest shocks in tennis history at the US Open, said two-time champion Tracy Austin.

Williams, 33, was two wins from completing the calendar Grand Slam but lost 2-6 6-4 6-4 to unseeded Italian Roberta Vinci in the semi-finals.
"This is monumental. It's a shocker," Austin told BBC Sport.
"This is one of the biggest upsets in the history of tennis, because of what was on the line."
Williams went into Friday's semi-final on a 33-match winning streak in Grand Slams stretching back to Wimbledon 2014.
She had hoped to match Steffi Graf's 1988 sweep off all four majors in the same year, and was up against a player she had beaten four times without dropping a set.
Vinci, 32, is ranked 43 in the world and was playing in her first Grand Slam semi-final.

Vinci had never won a set in four previous defeats against Serena Williams

"Roberta Vinci had a losing record coming into the US Open and somehow got hot," added Austin.
"Things went her way, the draw opened up, Genie Bouchard hit her head and couldn't play that match [in round four]. It's just the way things happen sometimes.
"That's why they put the net up every day. You've got to go out and handle the nerves.
"I always said Serena's biggest opponent coming into this year's US Open was going to be her own nerves."

'I don't want to talk about it'

Williams has won the US Open six times in her career, the first coming in 1999

Williams was fulsome in her praise for Vinci, saying she "played literally out of her mind", but the American was not in the mood to discuss her own feelings.
"I don't want to talk about how disappointing it is for me," she said. "If you have any other questions, I'm open for that."
Tickets for the women's final had sold out before the men's for the first time ever as anticipation mounted in New York.