Olympic [ Images ] champion Serena Williams [ Images ] suffered her first loss in nearly three months on Friday as she was knocked out of the Cincinnati Open quarter-finals, falling 6-4, 6-4 to Germany's [ Images ] Angelique Kerber.
While older sister Venus Williams [ Images ] continued her progress and moved to the semi-finals with a 6-2, 6-7, 6-4 win over U.S. Open champion Samantha Stosur [ Images ], Serena struggled against an impressive Kerber en route to just her fourth defeat of the year.
Serena, who had not lost since her opening round defeat at the French Open [ Images ], complained of fatigue after her last 16 match on Thursday but she fell on Friday to an opponent who used a mix of intelligence and technique to make her life difficult.
"It was probably for the best that I didn't win today, even though I wanted to win. But maybe my body was like telling me not to. I don't know," said Williams, whose loss came in her 31st match, including singles and doubles action, since the start of Wimbledon [ Images ].
"I felt really good going out there today, much better than my other two matches but it was a false alarm.
"She didn't do too much that threw me off. Her game is pretty straightforward and you know what to expect. She's getting a lot of balls back. She played really well today and I think she served more up the T than I expected," she added.
Kerber, who has reached at least the quarter-finals in 12 of 17 events played this year, double-faulted on match point but on her third chance used a blistering ace to win the match.
"I had nothing to lose today, I tried to play my best and take it point by point because she has been playing so well recently," said world number seven Kerber.
The German's opponent in Saturday's semi-final will be the winner of the match between Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova [ Images ] and Czech Petra Kvitova [ Images ] later on Friday.
Venus Williams's recovery from health problems is finally delivering some results, she reached her first semi-final since pulling out of last year's U.S. Open with an auto-immune disease that causes fatigue and joint soreness.
"I'd like to think that this is only the beginning for me of more semi-finals. Of course I'm going to stay focused and try to make it to the final as well," said Williams, who will face either China's Li Na [ Images ] or top seed Agnieszka Radwanska [ Images ] of Poland in the semi-finals.
"I'd like to take it a lot further. I haven't played a lot since 2010, so this is awesome for me already."
Photograph: John Sommers II/Reuters
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