US Open Tennis 2016: Women's Semifinal TV Schedule, Start Times and Picks

A spot in the finals of the 2016 U.S. Open will be on the line Thursday night when the last four women take the court in a semifinal round loaded with stars.

Will the tournament's top two seeds, Serena Williams and Angelique Kerber, win to set up a colossal final or will Karolina Pliskova and Caroline Wozniacki force upsets and continue their stellar runs? Each contest looks to be a close matchup, which should lead to some fabulous tennis.

ESPN will air the action from 7 to 11 p.m. Take a look below at the start times, courtesy of ESPN, and the picks for the semifinal affairs.

Matchup	Start Time	Court	Prediction
No. 1 Serena Williams vs. No 10 Karolina Pliskova	7 p.m.	Arthur Ashe Stadium	Williams in 3
No. 2 Angelique Kerber vs. Caroline Wozniacki	9 p.m.	Arthur Ashe Stadium	Kerber in 3

In her quest to capture an astonishing 23rd Grand Slam title, Williams has been great thus far at Flushing Meadows, New York. She breezed through the first four rounds without dropping a set before running into some trouble in the quarterfinals against No. 5 Simona Halep, her first ranked opponent in the tournament.

Williams lost the second set and had to fight off several late pushes on game points from Halep to finally put her away in the third frame. Against a strong defensive opponent in Halep, Williams committed a personal-high 43 unforced errors in this tournament. Following the match, she expressed that she needs to cut down on mistakes, per espnW's Johnette Howard.

"I didn't play the same match in the second [set] that I did in the first," Williams said. "That's what makes me really calm. I feel like I can play so much better. I think everyone here knows I can play better."

Serena cannot afford similar types of lapses against Pliskova, who rallied to beat Venus Williams in the quarterfinal. 

Pliskova, 24, is an emerging star in the sport who can play a similar power game to Williams. She has earned more than half of her points when holding serve in four of her five matches this tournament while averaging around six aces per match. This type of play has allowed her to have considerable success over the last two years, per Kevin Fischer of the WTA:

She can also hold her own on return points, having won an average of five such games per match. This should come in handy, as Williams is averaging 12 aces per contest. 

Williams will have her hands full with a quality player in Pliskova, but experience could be the difference here. Pliskova is playing past the third round for the first time at the U.S. Open, while Williams has won this tournament three of the last five years and has made at least the semifinals in all five trips. The young Czech will put up a fight, but Serena will find a way to close her out late.

Kerber, Williams' biggest obstacle to win this event, also faces a tough challenge in the veteran Wozniacki.

The two have plenty of history, having played each other 12 times. Kerber holds a 7-5 advantage while winning seven of the last 10 meetings, but the unranked Wozniacki has found a spark of late to beat ranked foes No. 8 Madison Keys and No. 7 Svetlana Kuznetsova on her way to the semifinals.

Kerber has been on fire this year. She won the Australian Open by beating Serena and lost to her in the final of Wimbledon, and the German has yet to lose a set in this tournament. Kerber plays a patient game by moving around quickly to return nearly any shot and forcing her opponents into mistakes.

She explained this strategy after her quarterfinal win over No. 7 Roberta Vinci, per Ben Rothenberg of the New York Times.

"Wait for your shots," Kerber said, "because she is actually a good mover and she brings a lot of balls back with her slice as well. So I was trying to be moving good, and yeah, keeping my eyes on the balls and going for it because the spin is a little bit different than when you play against others; they are just hitting the balls really strong."

This has been on full display, as Kerber's last two foes, No. 14 Petra Kvitova and Vinci, each committed more than 30 unforced errors. U.S. Open Tennis' Twitter feed provided an example of Kerber's game plan:

Kerber does not make too many mistakes herself, averaging just 14 over her five matches at Flushing Meadows. Yet one bad set inflated that number, via WTA Insider:

Wozniacki has had only 12 unforced errors combined in her last two matches, but Kerber is a different challenge who seems to bait players into making mistakes. Having reached the semifinals twice and the finals once at the U.S. Open, Wozniacki should still be competitive on this court, but Kerber looks to be the favorite based on her recent history against Wozniacki and her play in 2016.

Tournament statistics are courtesy of USOpen.org. Career statistics are courtesy of WTATennis.com.