Venus Wins Latest Round in Sisters' Rivalry - 網球 Tennis

By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY
The New York Times
July 6, 2008

WIMBLEDON, England — Sisters for life and doubles partners later in the
afternoon, Venus and Serena Williams put all that aside for nearly two hours
Saturday at Wimbledon: slugging serves and ground strokes in each other’s
direction with a vengeance.

It had been five years since they had played a Grand Slam singles final
together, and the long wait resulted in one of their most intense and
entertaining matches despite the gusty conditions that made Centre Court feel
more like a wind tunnel.

But there is still no doubt about which Williams sister has the best record
at Wimbledon.

Despite a ferocious start from Serena, Venus was able to absorb the shock
and gradually impose her long-limbed presence on her favorite tennis court.
Her 7-5, 6-4 victory gave her a fifth Wimbledon singles title and left Serena
with two.

“I can’t believe it’s five, but when you’re in the final against Serena
Williams, five seems so far away from that first point,” Venus said in her
post-match remarks to the crowd. “She played so awesome. It was really a
task to beat her.”

But it remains even more of a task to beat Venus at the All England Club.
This was her second straight title and her third in four years.

Despite struggling this season, failing to win a tournament in the run-up to
Wimbledon, she swept through the draw without dropping a set.

“She loves it here,” said her hitting partner David Witt. “She comes
here, and it just seems like she just gets here and glows. She loves the
grass, and obviously confidence is everything in this game.”

On grass, Venus’s huge serves and flat ground strokes penetrate like on
nothing else. On grass, she is also more inclined to put her excellent
volleys to use, and at 6-foot-1, she covers a lot of air and space at the
net.

That ability, along with Venus’s clutch serving under pressure, was one of
the keys to this victory. Venus came to net 18 times and lost but three
points once she did. But this was not just a day for boldness. It was a day
for deep thinking and caution. With the wind playing nasty tricks on the
servers, Venus repeatedly grabbed her tosses instead of hitting them and
often pushed the legal time limits before serving, all too aware that her
younger sister was returning very aggressively and effectively.

Venus would lose her serve once in each set, but if she had not served
extremely well when she had to, she could have easily been broken on three or
four more occasions. In total, Serena would fail to convert on 11 of her 13
break points.

“She was a little better today, so it didn’t work out the way I planned,”
Serena said after the match.

When Serena finally did break Venus in the second set, prevailing on her
seventh break point of the marathon game to take a 2-1 lead, she then lost
her own serve much more quickly in the next game to let Venus get back to
2-all.

Serena looked dejected after that, and though she was still an imposing
presence on the court, Venus was the more audible presence down the stretch:
shrieking as she leaned into her ground strokes and playing world-class
defense. Meanwhile, Serena was uncharacteristically quiet.

Perhaps it was resignation, perhaps it was frustration. After all, she had
been the sister to start more strongly: taking 8 of the first 9 points with a
flurry of winners and forcing Venus to work extremely hard to avoid turning
the set into a rout. But with Serena leading, 4-2, Venus was able to build an
edge.

She would win the first set by breaking Serena’s serve, and would win the
match in the same fashion, taking the title when Serena knocked a two-handed
backhand wide.

Unlike other years, there were no leaps in the air, no unbridled joy. But
Venus was clearly delighted, and she and her sister have now each won eight
matches in their 16 often anticlimactic encounters.

This, however, was one of the best.

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