|
|
| |
| ||
|
| ||
 |
 Boogie nights Venus Williams dances past Pierce in hard-fought match
Posted: Tuesday September 08, 1998 01:06 AM
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- An apparent runaway victory turned into a dramatic triumph of heart and courage for fifth seed Venus Williams on Monday as she held off the challenge of France's Mary Pierce 6-1, 7-6 to earn a berth in the U.S. Open quarterfinals. Williams was facing a likely third set trailing 4-1 in the tiebreaker before she rattled off the last six points to claim the breaker 7-4 for a hard-fought 1-hour, 35-minute win. "I kept thinking positive and calm myself down," said the 18-year-old American, who reached the final in her U.S. Open debut last year. "I felt that I was still in it." After escaping a third set when the 12th seed's backhand sailed wide at match point, Williams celebrated with an impromptu victory dance before running over to hug her mother, Oracene, who was sitting courtside with other family members. "I didn't plan to dance, I planned to win the second set really easily," Williams said. Williams, who last year became the first unseeded player to reach the U.S. Open final since 1958, appeared to be racing to an easy victory as she stormed through the first set in 24 minutes, committing a mere two unforced errors along the way. But as an approaching storm darkened the sky to pitch black with Williams leading 1-0 in the second set, play was suspended by a violent storm. When play resumed after more than two hours, Pierce was a different player and so was the whole tone of the match. "I was grateful for Mother Nature," said Pierce. "That definitely helped me. "I started out really slow, it was one of those days when I was totally off. I didn't feel my strokes," said Pierce, who had 19 unforced errors in the first set. "Every point was going by too quick." The pair began to slug groundstrokes like heavyweight fighters trying to land the knockout punch.
As the tension mounted through the final games and in the tiebreaker so did the pace and depth of the shots, delighting the full house on the Grandstand court. "It was a great feeling to get to matches like this, where you bring the best out of each other," said Pierce, the 1995 Australian Open champion. "Those last few games were intense, it was either that or a third set." Williams served for the match after pulling out an amazing 24-point service break for a 6-5 lead, converting her seventh break point of the game when the Frenchwoman rushed a forehand over the baseline. But Williams could not wrap up the match, dropping her serve at 30-40 for the first time in the match to set up the climactic tie-break. Earlier, South African Amanda Coetzer beat longtime nemesis Conchita Martinez, the seventh seed, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 to earn a spot in the quarter-finals for the third time in the last five years. "It's very nice. Definitely she's been a very tough opponent for me my whole career," said the 13th-seeded Coetzer, who had won one of 13 previous meetings with the Spaniard. "It's great, especially because it's at a Grand Slam." Martinez was pained by her 57 unforced errors and a sore neck throughout the 2-hour, 38-minute match. "It was difficult for me to play my own game because I was injured," said Martinez, who had a trainer work on her neck several times during changeovers. "I thought of retiring since the first set, but I thought, hang in there, hang in there.'" Coetzer will play the winner of the night match between second seed Lindsay Davenport and 10th-seeded Wimbledon runner-up Nathalie Tauziat.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright © 1999 CNN/SI. A Time Warner Company. Terms under which this service is provided to you.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
