Kerber has even surprised herself

Saturday night's semifinal match between Serena Williams and Caroline Wozniacki is the most anticipated and glamorous of this year's Open and likely to produce the champion on Sunday.

Wozniacki has something to prove, that she can add a major title to her resume and enhance her No. 1 ranking. For Williams, 13 times a Grand Slam winner, including three U.S. Opens, it would be the ultimate comeback from injury and illness. For each of these players, there is great significance.

But there is a great deal at stake for the other semifinalists -- the occasionally contending Samantha Stosur and the virtually unknown Angelique Kerber. For the ninth-seeded Stosur, it would be validation as one of the world's best singles players after an early career in doubles. For Kerber, it's nothing less than emerging from the forest and spreading her wings.

Kerber is the 92nd-ranked player in the world, high enough to get into the main draw but not high enough to generate great expectations. You would have to go back to 1996 to find the last time a German woman made it this far at the Open. That would be Steffi Graf, who won 22 Grand Slam titles, the most all time.

The 23-year-old Kerber, like all German players, lives in the shadow of Graf, whose achievements are unlikely to be matched. Yet making the semis of the Open is a huge achievement for Kerber, who has never won a WTA tournament, never before made it past the third round of a Grand Slam, has never beaten a player ranked in the top 10.

Yet, here she is, defying expectations, even her own.

"I would think you are crazy," Kerber said of her Open dreams. "Yeah, it is a dream and I will play the semifinals. The tournament does not end."

Her road to the semifinals was a bit fortuitous, the luck of the draw on her side. She had to beat only two seeded players. She came from behind to beat No. 12 Agnieszka Radwanska in the second round and beat No. 26 Flavia Pennetta in the quarters, winning the third set after squandering a break in the second.

She had promise when she turned pro in 2003, but injuries derailed her career in 2009. Fellow German pro Andrea Petkovic, who lost in the quarters to Wozniacki, helped get her career airborne again this spring when she invited her to practice with her in Germany. Kerber spent a month with Petkovic and the coaches at a tennis academy, and emerged with a renewed game, one that Petkovic predicted would take Kerber into the top 30 within six months.

Said Kerber: "She told me, 'You can do it, you need to play consistent tennis and not think about something, that you can win or lose.' "

Stosur, who has reached one Grand Slam final, never has played Kerber. "I don't know much about Kerber except that she's a lefty," Stosur said. "That's about it."