French Open 2015 scores: Serena Williams advances to finals after win over Timea Bacsinszky

The women’s final at the 2015 French Open is now set, as top seed Serena Williams downed No. 23 seed Timea Bacsinszky in three sets, 4-6, 6-3, 6-0. Williams will face No. 13 seed Lucie Safarova in the final on Saturday.

Bacsinszky had Williams on her heels early, scoring an early break to take the lead in the first set. She didn’t look like someone playing in her first major semifinal early on, handling Williams’ sheer power on her serves and putting together basically flawless service games. Bacsinszky wound up serving for the set, but Williams wasn’t about to make it easy for her. Williams fought off a couple of Bacsinszky’s potential set points, but it was one of her own returns in an extended rally that she clearly had the advantage of that went wide, giving Bacsinszky the opening set.

Williams looked out of sorts in that first set. At one point, they came out to sweep the lines before the end of the set, and Williams had to ask the judge if the set was over. Typically, they don’t sweep the lines until the set is over so you can’t blame Williams for clarifying, but it’s still certainly unusual. Williams wasn’t totally out of it though, as she brazenly called off a point when she was confident one of Bacsinszky’s shots went long. The point would have ended the set if she were wrong, but she had it right and the set continued.

Into the second set, it was evenly matched until Williams was serving at 2-2. It was still pretty evenly matched there, but Bacsinszky hit several incredible returns right on the line and managed to break Williams for the second time. Of course, Williams didn’t stand by and let Bacsinszky take the match from her, immediately breaking back to tie things up again. After a hold, Williams broke her again to serve for the set, and handled that service game easily to tie it at a set apiece.

At that point, Bacsinszky lost all the steam she had and Williams stepped her game up even more. Williams dominated the final set without issue, winning it with a clean sweep of 6-0.

As noted above, she’ll be taking on Safarova in the final. It’s Safarova’s first ever Grand Slam final, but she handled the pressure of the semifinals against No. 7 seed Ana Ivanovic quite well, recovering from some late mistakes to take that match in straight sets, 7-5, 7-5.

The men’s semifinals will take place on Friday, as No. 1 seed Novak Djokovic takes on No. 3 seed Andy Murray while No. 8 seed Stan Wawrinka faces off against No. 14 seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. The women’s final will take place on Saturday.