player to beat both William sisters at the same Slam, joinin

MINNEAPOLIS -- King Felix is no longer the only ace in Seattle. Start by dazzling start, Hisashi Iwakuma is now right there with him. Iwakuma struck out five in 7 2-3 innings and Kendrys Morales homered to lead the Seattle Mariners to a 3-0 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Friday night. Iwakuma (6-1) gave up seven hits and walked two to drop his ERA to 2.13, and Jesus Sucre added two hits and an RBI for the Mariners, who snapped Minnesotas four-game winning streak. Tom Wilhelmsen picked up his 12th save. "With what hes done in the past, I think were coming to expect this from him," Mariners shortstop Brendan Ryan said. "Whether thats fair or not, its just a tribute to how good and how nasty he is." Mike Pelfrey (3-6) gave up three runs on six hits in 5 1-3 innings for the Twins. Pedro Florimon had three hits and Chris Parmelee had two, but the rest of the lineup went 2 for 27 with six strikeouts. Morales eighth homer of the season was a two-run shot off Pelfrey to dead centre field that started Seattles three-run third inning. And that was all Iwakuma needed. "He knows how to dig deep when he needs to and he understands the game, and great heartbeat, like weve talked about so much," Mariners manager Eric Wedge said. "Hes able to slow the game down when he needs to slow it down and when he gets on a roll he gets in that nice tempo, which weve seen a lot of that this year." After a 10-game losing streak earlier in the month, the Twins came into the opener against the struggling Mariners on a nice little roll. They had won five of their previous six games following that miserable skid and appeared to have their fortunes turning thanks to a soft spot in the schedule -- they took four straight from the free-falling Brewers this week -- and some luck in not getting Mariners ace Felix Hernandez this weekend. But Iwakuma is no picnic either. Like many of his Japanese brethren who have come before him, Iwakuma has an almost hypnotic, unconventional delivery that plays with a hitters eye level. His right leg flares out on the follow-through that has the potential to distract as his splitter reaches the plate. He went 9-5 with a 3.16 ERA in 16 starts last season, but the American League hasnt shown any signs of figuring him out in his second year. The crafty right-hander entered the game with a 2.35 ERA, the third best in the American League and just ahead of Hernandez (2.38). His only loss of the season came in a 2-1 defeat at Houston on April 23 when he struck out 11 in five innings. He didnt miss as many bats on Friday night, but he was just as effective. He got Joe Mauer and Ryan Doumit twice and also induced three comebackers to the mound as the Twins flailed away. "He can spot that fastball at the knees and I dont know how you want to describe it, but its downhill and then it kind of flattens out," Ryan said. "It looks like its going to be a ball down and it stays at the knees for a strike. Then he throws a splitter off that. What are you supposed to do? I mean at that point youre almost having to guess." The Twins had a chance to get on the board in the third inning with runners at the corners and one out. But a drawn-in Brendan Ryan made a nifty stab at shortstop on a hot shot from Jamey Carroll and made a sharp throw off one foot to get Parmelee at home plate. "He pretty much shut us down," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. Iwakuma caught a break in the fifth when Florimons double down the left field line bounced into the seats for a ground-rule double, which prevented Parmelee from scoring. Carroll grounded out to end the inning. "I didnt have a very good bullpen today," Iwakuma said through a translator. "I thought my balance wasnt right, but then I was able to make my adjustment during the game." NOTES: The Mariners have won four of six following and eight-game losing streak. ... 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NEW YORK -- It was late in this US Open semifinal match, and once again, the lopsided nature of Serena Williams résumé versus her opponents didnt matter. Same as it didnt save Williams in four of her past five Grand Slam losses before this. This time, Williams tormentor wasnt her Australian Open conqueror Angelique Kerber, or Spanish upstart Garbine Muguruza, who surprised her in this years French Open final. It wasnt even a wily veteran like Roberta Vinci, who derailed Williams run at a calendar-year Grand Slam on this same court a year ago with arguably the most monumental upset in tennis history.Thursday night on the floor of Arthur Ashe Stadium, the new predicament Williams found herself in was a win-or-go-home tiebreaker against 24-year-old Karolina Pliskova, a 10th-seeded but largely unproven Czech. Williams was faced with the unenviable chore of trying to survive against the most prolific ace machine on tour. This while playing with an aching left knee -- a new ailment that only a few insiders knew that she had until after the match, which ended ingloriously for her with a double fault that sealed Pliskovas stunning 6-2, 7-6 (5) win.Just like that, all the history Williams was chasing -- a tie with Chris Evert for the record of seven US Open titles, a chance to break her tie with Steffi Graf at 22 majors, most in the Open era -- was put off for another day. When Williams wakes up Monday morning, she also officially wont be ranked No. 1 (Kerber will) leaving Williams forever moored in a tie with Graf for most consecutive weeks in the top spot, with 186.Im not talking about No. 1, thank you, Williams said during an occasionally terse news conference in which she allowed that her knee mightve contributed to the loss. Williams, though, hotly disputed fatigue from her three-set win over Simona Halep a day earlier was a factor.For Williams, who turns 35 on Sept. 26, the defeat nonetheless continued a troubling trend. By any measure -- the statistics, the anecdotal evidence, the way she has dominated tennis for two decades now -- Williams is the greatest player in tennis history, bar none. Theres no need to confine the praise to only the womens side of the sport.Including last months Rio Olympics, where Williams was sent crashing out in the third round by Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, what has been astonishing isnt just who Williams has lost to in the biggest moments the past year -- its how she has been losing. Even when her body hasnt betrayed her, as it did in the past month, nerves seem to haunt her. Her confidence seems more brittle than youd expect, given all that she has done. Errors come in bunches. Opponents are rushing in to capitalize.Williams has now lost four of her past five major tournaments to players that she had a combined career record of 18-2 against before she lost to them.Players still deeply respect Williams. But other than her win against Kerber for the Wimbledon title, Williams just doesnt project the same self-assurance or strike the same off-the-charts fear into her opponents that she used to.dddddddddddd And Muguruza had no problem saying that out loud after her French Open title win, telling reporters that players are seeing that Williams is more beatable now.Of course, Muguruza hasnt personally been able to build on her breakthrough win. She has fallen into the same struggles that Kerber admittedly did after she won her first Slam title. But still other players have performed like they agree with the Spaniard -- playing Williams doesnt spark the same feeling of inevitability it used to. Other players just seem to see a little daylight now against Williams, where before, they saw little to none.Romanias Halep said as much, too, after very nearly beating Williams in their three-set dogfight on Wednesday night. Afterward, she rued her failure to break Williams in the first game of the final set, saying if shed done that then, the ending wouldve been a different story.Pliskova played like one of the new believers, too. Williams is generally thought to have the greatest serve in the history of the game, but Pliskovas serve and return games were both better than Serenas on Thursday night.And the thing is, Pliskova had never even been past the third round of a Grand Slam tournament until this giant-killing 11-match summer winning streak shes on, which also included a win over Serenas sister, Venus, earlier in this tournament. With the victory, Pliskova became only the fourth player to beat both William sisters at the same Slam, joining Martina Hingis, Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin.I said I dont believe it -- but actually, I do believe [I won], Pliskova said. I always knew I had a chance to beat anyone if Im playing my game.For Serena, who is used to doing the dictating, it was a frustrating night. But she refused to go as far as her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, did and blame this loss on her knee injury. (Mouratoglou said she suffered it against Halep on Wednesday, but Williams said she suffered a few rounds earlier.) The most Williams would allow was being hampered by the knee caused her focus to waver.I was making errors that I never make. So many simple, simple shots that I couldve easily made, she said.Williams has been so extraordinary for so long, any wobble in her play seems like a seismic event. But she has now had four such upsets in her past five Slams. She isnt just blowing these matches; her rivals are going out and taking them.Williams has dug herself out of too many trenches before in her majestic 22-year career to rush to any big conclusions that this is the beginning of her end as the games greatest player. But it has been happening for a year now.And its only natural to wonder. ' ' '