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July 01, 2005

Force with Williams again after rugged test of steel
By Simon Barnes, Chief Sports Writer



LAST night Venus Williams returned to the world of tennis, at last doing what she does best. She beat her multitude of off-court distractions and also Maria Sharapova, the champion, in an epic collision of wills and skills, winning 7-6, 6-1. Williams entered these cham-pionships with questions being asked over her form and commitment, now she is in the Wimbledon final and playing as well as she has done in her life.
A lot of tennis is about establishing control: of ball, point, time and place. In the big stadium courts it is as if both players are seeking some kind of territorial rights over the place they are in.



Centre Court is one of the most intimidating arenas in sport, no players, not even the best, dominate it. The greatest can make it seem as if the place is somehow subtly on their side, but that sort of thing is won, not given.

When Sharapova and Williams at last got on to Centre Court yesterday, after a long afternoon of rainwatching, each set about trying to seize control of the place. Both are players of force, both are personalities of force, both have a very high sense of their own importance in life.

And neither is all that keen on backing down. Their game started later than the one on No 1 Court, but for all that, so far as I know, the weather was the same on each. You imagined the players already vying for dominance in the locker-room, each refusing to be the first to move on to court.

It was clear from the start that every aspect of this encounter was going to be bitterly disputed. Much has been made throughout the tournament of such matters as wardrobe and grunting and press-conference put-downs, and both players have done admirably in all these departments. But in women�s tennis the only true way of claiming the court is by weight and depth of ground stroke � backed up by weight and depth of personality.

These were opponents altogether worthy of each other�s steel. Both see themselves as champions, both believe that they have a right to some kind of hegemony over Centre Court. Both found an opponent utterly unprepared to yield that right. It was a perfect collision of wills, old champion against new champion.

Williams has been speaking about her lessening commitment to tennis, her increasing interest in a raft of activities. Her tennis, and her interest in it, has been patchy. But she has played herself into some serious form and besides, if you are a proper champion, the sight of a younger champion does rather tend to get you going.

Williams was a woman inspired, and it was Sharapova who had done the inspiring. It was as if she had shed years and, with it, all the layers of poetry writing and interior designing that have got between her and tennis monomania. Suddenly we had the rebirth of Venus: every roaring, belting martial inch of her, and she had a mission to demonstrate to the court and to the world that little Russian princesses with underarm deodorant endorsements count for much less than they thought in the grand scheme of things.

Williams dominated the early exchanges with her greater power and because the occasion had brought out in her those things that had been sleeping for too long. But Sharapova is not a great one for crumpling and she fought back from a break down in the first set to level pegging.

The two were by this time playing frighteningly close to their best and the rallies became things of rare and perfect ferocity � stunning power, outrageously deep hitting and a noise that could hardly be believed; not so much grunts of effort as primal screams, expressive of ferocity and ambition and fear.

The titanic first set went to a tie-break and here Williams, consistently more aggressive in her shot selection, more adventurous in her approach, moved ahead. She played as if she had nothing to lose. It was not a great difference, but it was enough in the first set to make all the difference.

As so often happens, the momentum stayed with the player who had shaded the first set. Williams was rocking and rumbling and she overwhelmed Sharapova, breaking her to love in the first game of the second set. That�s the thing with grass-court tennis, you look away for a minute and you look back to find that you have lost something precious. It was a desperate advantage to concede and a desperate time to concede it.

Williams built on her advantage like a flat-track bully, jumping on Sharapova every time that she threatened a comeback. Sharapova did plenty of threatening, never for a moment believing that the match was a lost cause and gathering break-back points, but she was never quite allowed to convert them.

It seemed that Centre Court had become Venus�s place. Again.

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Venus drives out Sharapova

Williams turns on the power to beat champion in straight sets

Stephen Bierley
Friday July 1, 2005
The Guardian

If there is one golden rule in women's tennis it is never, never underestimate the Williams sisters. Venus came into these Wimbledon championships with little or no form and without a grand slam title for four years. Yesterday, in a semi-final of almost frightening intensity, she defeated Maria Sharapova, the 18-year-old Russian reigning champion, 7-6, 6-1.
It was a colossal performance of unbending concentration and determination. Public voices have been braying that her days at the top were all but over; small, insidious voices in her head will have been whispering of doubts and temptations of life outside of tennis.


There was no smile at first. Williams simply raised her arms in lofty triumph as Sharapova's last shot of the 2005 Wimbledon championships flew wide. It was as if time had been suspended between now and her last Wimbledon triumphs of 2000 and 2001 when she beat first Lindsay Davenport and then Justine Henin-Hardenne in the final.
It was then that the full extent of what she achieved enveloped her and she bounced high on the Centre Court turf with a smile that could not have been wider. Only a few minutes earlier, as she strained every sinew to finish Sharapova off, her face was contorted as the adrenalin coursed through her body.

Sharapova never once sagged or offered any suggestion that defeat was about to engulf her. The teenager's self-belief never wavered; the trouble for her was that neither did Williams. It was a match of brutal hitting and high-decibel vocalisations. Here were two tigerish athletes going for each other's throats. There was no compromise, no backward step.

It was not that the reigning champion played poorly, simply that Williams rediscovered the consistent power and purpose that sent her soaring to the top of women's tennis. "This is the surface for me," she beamed afterwards.

Her mother, Oracene, and father, Richard, had all been working hard to get her back on track and make her believe in herself again. There were signs of a recovery in Miami earlier this year when she defeated Serena in the quarter-finals only to lose immediately to Sharapova. "I tried to listen to my Mom and Dad and not be a hard-headed kid."

Serena, knocked out in the first week, had emailed her sister "telling me what to do". Serena had beaten Sharapova in the semi-finals of this year's Australian Open in another match of extreme hitting and again yesterday there were moments when the young Russian was simply overpowered.

Both women hit with startling depth in the opening set, with Williams edging clear at 4-2. The match had been delayed by the infuriating drizzle and Chris Gorringe, the chief executive who will retire at the end of the Championships, was booed when he announced the order of play had been changed. Those jeers quickly turned to cheers when the Centre Court realised they had the Sharapova-Williams match with Lindsay Davenport and Am�lie Mauresmo switched to Court No1.

That semi-final will be completed today with Davenport, the world No1, leading 6-7, 7-6, 5-3, though after this performance it is difficult to imagine Williams being stopped from winning her fifth slam. The wounded former champion is back competing at her fiercest and in this sort of implacable form it has only been her sister who has been able to beat her in the past.

Sharapova will undoubtedly gain in strength and even though Williams was playing at the top of her powers the teenager still managed to square the first set at 5-5. She hit a quite wonderful forehand cross court to save a set point at 5-4 and appeared to be marginally in the ascendancy before the tie-beak began.

But two stray backhands put her under huge pressure and she never recovered. It was essential that she started the second set well but the efforts of the first set had all but drained her. Williams had beaten only one top five player in the last two years and that was her sister. Now she scented blood.

Sharapova saved one match point at 5-1, courtesy of her opponent who missed a backhand at the net with virtually the whole court open. It was a temporary stay of execution. A kiss to the crowd and the champion was gone.

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