Flushing Meadows, NY (Sports Network) - For the second time in two years the womens final at the U. Thomas Morstead Womens Jersey .S. Open will pit world No. 1 Serena Williams against former top-ranked star Victoria Azarenka. Williams overcame Azarenka in three sets in last years high-quality finale in New York City. In Fridays semifinal nightcap, the top-seeded Williams whipped fifth-seeded Chinese star and fellow 31-year-old Li Na 6-0, 6-3, while the first semi on Day 12 saw the second-seeded Azarenka defeat unseeded Italian Flavia Pennetta 6-4, 6-2 at Ashe Stadium. Williams took the first set at love in a mere 29 minutes against an overwhelmed Li on Day 12. The Chinese star improved in the second set, as she broke Williams for a short-lived 2-1 lead. But Williams righted the ship by breaking right back on her way to a commanding 5-2 lead. Williams and Li battled in a brilliant eighth game in the second, as the Chinese veteran saved a whopping six match points on her serve. But the match came to an end in the next game, as Williams served her way into the final, converting on a seventh match point when Li netted one final forehand return. "It was tough at the end," Williams said. "I got a little bit nervous, but I was able to close it out finally." Williams needed 1 hour, 27 minutes to move on, as she broke Li five times while coughing up her serve only once. The high-flying Williams improved to 9-1 lifetime against Li, including a perfect 4-0 mark in Grand Slam action. The former French Open titlist Li was this years Australian Open runner-up to the two-time reigning Melbourne champion Azarenka. Shes now 3-2 in her career Grand Slam semis, with Friday marking her one at the U.S. Open. The amazing Williams will now play in her 21st career Grand Slam final, seeking a 17th major title. She owns 54 career titles overall on the WTA circuit, including eight already in 2013. She was the French Open champion in June and currently holds half the major titles. Williams is 4-2 in her U.S. Open finals, but has never titled back-to-back in Flushing. Shes now 71-9 overall at the Open. The powerful American is a sizzling 66-4 overall this year. Meanwhile, the Belarusian stalwart Azarenka needed six set points and 52 minutes to win the first set against the 83rd-ranked Pennetta. The second set, however, was another story, as Azarenka cruised through that one in 42 minutes. Serving for the match, Azarenka converted on her third match point with a solid forehand winner. The shrieking Belarusian broke her Italian counterpart eight times, while Pennetta tallied five breaks in a losing effort. The slightly off Azarenka prevailed despite committing 25 unforced errors while striking only 15 winners and improving to a tour-best 31-1 on hardcourts this year. "It was a little bit tricky," Azarenka said. "I couldnt find my rhythm at the beginning. I felt I was rushing too much. I couldnt really put the ball in play. Its good I stayed tough, played well in the return game at important moments." The 31-year-old Pennetta is a former top-10 star who was playing in her first- ever Grand Slam semi. Shes reached at least the quarterfinals in four of her last five trips to New York. The Italian missed last years Open due to a wrist injury. Azarenka is now 2-1 lifetime against Pennetta, who was the first-ever Italian woman to crack the WTAs top 10 back in 2009. The 24-year-old Minsk native Azarenka will appear in her fourth career Grand Slam final, seeking her third title and first outside of Melbourne. Shes 17-13 in her career finals overall, including 3-2 this season. Azarenka has now reached four of the last eight womens Grand Slam finals. Williams is 12-3 lifetime against Azarenka, but the Belarusian has won two of their three meetings this year -- all in finals. The American great, however, is a dominant 7-0 in their career Grand Slam matchups. The 2013 womens U.S. Open champ will earn $2.6 million. 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The French winger struck again after the interval, combining with Thomas Mueller on the left before firing a deflected shot beyond the helpless Timo Hildebrand in the 55th, as Bayern bounced back from Wednesdays 1-0 loss at FC Basel in the Champions League.Tim Bezbatchenko has a plane to catch but he needs to talk to his wife first. The clock says 8pm, but it already feels like 2am to him. He wants to sleep, but tiredness is not the overriding emotion of the moment. It is one of great joy. He has just finished negotiating a deal for his newest job with Major League Soccer in New York. This morning he was in France, at the noted Clairefontaine base, where his primary focus was helping MLS improve their coaching standards with the desire to one day develop a genuine world-class star. Now, with France asleep including his wife and young son, darkness falls on Manhattan and a new chapter of his life has just begun. It is the night of Thursday, September 19, 2013 and tomorrow is his wedding anniversary. Bezbatchenko was hoping to celebrate another year married to the girl he met in college, but now the league is telling him he has to go to Toronto on the next flight available. Eight hours later it is 4am and he is at JFK Airport. By 7:30am, he is at the Air Canada Centre shaking hands with some of his new colleagues and by 10am, he is in front of a media circus for his press conference at BMO Field. He shifts in his chair excitedly when reflecting back to that day and was clearly proud of the message he delivered. "I started talking about the vision and many of the things we put in place that day are still the same. Its the reason behind what we have done.” Focus immediately shifts to now. Its not difficult to understand why. After all, in the last three weeks, he has fired his head coach and most of his coaching staff and watched his team spiral down the Eastern Conference standings and out of a playoff spot. Such turmoil has led some to report another new dawn could soon be on its way at the club, but Bezbatchenko is more than confident he is the man to turn it all around. “I truly believe in this bunch of guys," Bezbatchenko said. "We have put together a very good locker room with great character. This is not a reset, its a continuation of everything we said that day and thats what I want to continue to get across." September 2013 That day, a year ago this week, the 32-year-old American, was literally thrust into the limelight. "That many cameras, that just doesnt happen in other MLS cities," he reflected as we sat down recently. He smiles as he reflects on how he and his family fell in love with Toronto immediately. Labour Day signals a change in the calendar for schools and the weather and it was also a change in the direction for Toronto FC. That day in 2013 was when Tim Leiweke picked up the phone and called Bezbatchenko. "I was in a very comfortable position, but its only calls like that from a visionary like Tim Leiweke that pique your interest. We talked about doing something great, having the opportunity of taking a club that lacked any identity and inconsistency of success, to turn it around and we both knew it wasnt going to be easy, but we knew we would try our hardest to do it as quickly as possible.” The two Tims had formed a relationship when the younger version was working in the MLS office. When David Beckham was with LA Galaxy and needed to arrange a training stint at Tottenham to stay fit, Bezbatchenko was the man who coordinated that for the league. He did the same for Leiweke when Landon Donovan spent time on loan at Everton. "The job was a great opportunity for me. I spoke to people around me, including the commissioner, but the moment we visited Toronto as a family it wasnt a hard decision." Why Not Zlatan? Bezbatchenko was the longest name on the list of candidates, but it wasnt the only one. However, it was the name at the top of Leiwekes list. When convinced he would take the job, Leiweke sat him down and started to pick his brain. "He wanted to know who I would want to sign as a DP, who would be a good target. I remember thinking ‘Wow, he really wants to get into this, so I brought up (Zlatan) Ibrahimovic. Look, I knew he wasnt available and was happy at PSG, but he is someone for me who is the perfect DP and when you think of a traditional DP and what it means in Tims world, because it has been diluted since, Ibra checks all the boxes for what a DP originally meant to be - skill, panache, bigger-than-life mentality, scorer of amazing goals and some controversy, too." Bezbatchenko had no idea if Leiweke even knew of the Swedish striker, but it didnt matter. He was asked to go back and prepare more names for potential DP signings. Bezbatchenko decided to go one better. "I wrote a plan. It included history of TFC, a look at decisions that were emotionally based, a lack of a plan, too many changes with no basis for them and, then, I got analytical with the budget and got into what player values were and should be." This was Bezbatchenkos wheelhouse. At the University of Richmond, he was the star on a college soccer team that was a mid-major in the national championship. He was obsessed with the sport from childhood and still has all of the 1994 World Cup matches on VHS tapes at his parents house. In his senior year, he did his thesis on MLS player wages and whether they were artificially suppressed by looking at how much players were paid proportionate to gate revenue. At the time, he still had a dream to become one of those players himself, but months later he would go undrafted at the 2004 MLS Superdraft. "MLS had contracted to 10 teams, so it was harder to get into and, in my mind, there is that part, but looking back I know I just wasnt good enough, you know?" He went on to play two years in the USL with the Pittsburgh Riverhounds, winning the championship, went to law school and worked at an attorney generals office in Virginia where he mastered the anti-trust laws that interlock sports and law so often. "It helped shape me. I saw the DC sniper (John Allen Muhammad) on death row and got to walk and talk to other people on death row and saw a different side of life that keeps perspective on what we are doing here on a day-to-day basis." His law working experience taught him a lot about working under stress, reading people and books. A lot of books. "You have to read a lot at all sorts of hours of the day when people are tired and you cannot miss anything. Custom New Orleans Saints Jerseys. . I learned a lot about professionalism, how to be detail-orientated and it changed the way I approached problems and conflict resolution." MLS Two years later, a job was posted at the MLS player development department for a lawyer, who also had playing experience, and after not getting in as a player, he finally found his role. Immediately, Bezbatchenko cherished his surroundings despite facing challenges. "When I walked in there, back in 2010, there wasnt one PDF file about players contracts. It was all in binders." Six years earlier, as a student, before "Moneyball" was written, he had already put them in a system himself from his house. He was the perfect candidate to move MLS forward. His first assignment was to help expansion cities Vancouver and Portland construct their rosters. Thats when he started to learn how to navigate the rules of MLS, how to build a squad, be budget-compliant and how to sign players. Its also where he got to know a lot about Toronto FC, which helped him prepare the documents that impressed Leiweke so much when he was hired. TFCs representative at MLS HQ to help them finish their deals was Bezbatchenko. He was the key witness to all of the clubs past mistakes. The GM, understandably, is hesitant to critique former employees of TFC, but does clarify what his roles were and how it convinced him that one day he could do the job. “You have to understand that we have to make sure that no one can ever use the league as the reason for their failures, "Bezbatchenko explains. "However, when you are on the phone everyday with different GMs, going through their decision-making and when they start asking you for advice and your opinion, then inevitably, you can calibrate what you think of the game and whether it would actually work, how you would do things differently, and you start to think I could do it, although I never imagined it would come so early!” Project: Defoe Bezbatchenkos reports impressed Leiweke, but when he arrived he knew already that the number one target was Jermain Defoe. “We went over on the trip and it was larger than life for everyone, even Tim (Leweike,)" Bezbatchenko recalled. "No one in MLS has ever gone after a DP like the way we went after Jermain Defoe, except for David Beckham, which was a little different, and it felt great because it was like we were coming in and we were going to get what we want. I got to know Ryan (Nelsen) and Tim really well, wed stay up late and talk soccer. I knew my place. I know how to create a vision and how to get people on board for that. Ryan could speak about the league and wanting to play for us, not going to a club battling relegation. What a big name can do for a club and a business, thats Tim, the whole idea of building a club that is built on a DP super club, he has the blueprint for that.” By next summer, at least two-thirds of these amigos will be gone, but the one remaining believes he is ready to lead with or without Defoe, who he says he wants to keep if he wants to be here. “Tim and I have a roadmap for success and we will work on that until he leaves, but I firmly believe now, a year in, that I can execute that," he said. "Personally, I feel I have connected with Jermain and his family. There is a relationship beyond the locker room and I know, despite all the reports, we want him on the pitch for us. We are firmly set on making the playoffs, we made that commitment to the fans and it wasnt about taking the money. This year, he has been frustrated and unsettled because of his injuries, but we have his flight booked to return and he is ready to come back.” Having Defoe and Michael Bradley at the club meant expectations have increased inside it. Bezbatchenko admits that such players made a difference at how he monitored everything. On a recent conference call about Defoe he said: "We have a committed player. He was frustrated with the course of our team, no doubt. That was one of the reason we made the (coaching) change.” He told me: “Throughout the season, Michael and Jermain held me and everyone to a higher standard. Its a measurable – you have to evaluate your work. Its up to me to measure our progress and one of them is always ‘Are the players responding and how are they responding? I attended training and talked to the players and that, along with a number of factors, primarily results, led to the change.” It is no secret that former head coach Ryan Nelsen had a good relationship with Defoe, but Bezbatchenko said he spoke to the English striker for 30 minutes this week about returning and the former Tottenham man never brought up Nelsens departure in the conversation. Despite the way their professional relationship ended, Bezbatchenko enjoyed working with Nelsen, even though they werent always on the same page. “We worked hard talking about players constantly and about what our needs were," said Bezbatchenko. "There would be different ways that we would go about trades. One can be the coaching staff saying we dont need this player, so I call around and see what his value is, whether he is an asset, and other times, I would offer opportunities to coaches by knowing other GMs and what they need. We all have to be on board on all these deals. I know as a GM, I am not the coach, so I am not going to tell them how to play or do a coaching session, but long-term, my vision has to be consistent with my coach and there were times, when looking at potential deals, that we werent always on the same page and so it didnt get done. Thats why I brought Greg (Vanney) in, because we share the same vision, starting from a youth standpoint and how wed like our first team to play.” And with that Bezbatchenko leaves the interview because he has a reservation at a nearby restaurant. “Early anniversary dinner with the wife?” I ask. “No, I have a meeting with the clubs supporters group, the Red Patch Boys,” he smiles. Make no mistake, after a year on the job, this is now Tim Bezbatchenkos Toronto FC. ' ' '