 |
| |
|
 |
 |
|
|
Venus races into semifinals Posted: Tuesday July 02, 2002 10:17 AMUpdated: Wednesday July 03, 2002 2:01 AM
When the 22-year-old American was at her imperious best in a 20-minute second set it was difficult to see how anyone in the women's draw could possibly deal with her power and stop her again converting that semifinal place into a Wimbledon crown as she has done in the last two years. "I'm just trying to play more solid every round, garner each point for myself," she said afterwards. "When it happens like it did today, it's very, very nice." Charged with stopping her in the last four will be the winner of the match between Monica Seles and Justine Henin, Williams's victim in the final last year. Whoever comes through the quarter-final could do worse than to follow the example set by 26-year-old Likhovtseva early in the first set, when the Russian had slightly the better of the match. Having lost all seven previous matches between the two, the Russian took a gamble on abandoning her baseliner instincts and charged into the net in the search of winners. Initially it worked and, with Venus struggling with her serve, the 48th-ranked Russian grabbed a break point in the first game. The world number one send down a bomb of a serve to save it but was rattled. The packed Centre Court crowd, who had been forced to wait for more than an hour for play to start because of rain, then witnessed some tremendous rallies as the set stayed with serve. But just as Williams got her first serve going, Likhovtseva's collapsed and the tall American took the psychological edge by moving further and further up the court to deal with the second serve. After a series of excellent returns, Williams finally broke the Russian's serve for a 4-2 lead with a winner that Likhovtseva thought was long. Bounced back The Russian bounced back gamely and had a chance to break back in the next game, but Williams's serve was now back at its best and she sent down a ball at 112 miles (180.2 km) per hour to win the point and undermine her opponent's fragile confidence. The American served out for a 5-2 lead and, with Likhovtseva now frustrated, she broke again to win the set. The match, as a contest, was over and Williams raced away with the second set. Her serve worked like clockwork and she even came in to the net now and again to test out the volleys she has been practising in her doubles matches with sister and second seed Serena. "Now I have a lot of confidence in my volleys, whereas before my volleys were really off," she said. "Now I'm coming in I know I can volley." When the inevitable victory came after just 47 minutes, Williams saluted the crowd with a simple wave. "When I was younger, I used to do a lot of fist pumps and things like that," she said afterwards. "It's not that it's still not exciting now, it's just I expect myself to be perfect."
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. |
|
||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
Jennifer Capriati ends Eleni Daniilidou’s run, and Venus Williams and Justine Henin advance.
