Venus Ends Losing Streak To Serena

Venus Williams ended her losing streak to her sister at six in a row by beating Serena 6-1, 7-6(10-8) in a well-played quarterfinal match at the Nasdaq 100 Open in Florida Tuesday night. It was the first time since the 2001 U.S. Open Final that Venus had beaten her sister, and (maybe not coincidently!) the first time in nearly two years they had not met in a final. The losing streak had begun at the 2002 Nasdaq Open where Serena won easily (6-2, 6-2) and then went on to completely dominate women's tennis for the next 15 months. The sisters faced each other in four consecutive Grand Slam finals (French Open 2002, Wimbledon 2002, U.S. Open 2002, Australian Open 2003) with Serena winning all four matches in straight sets (becoming the 5th woman in history to simultaneously hold all four major titles). Then Serena won again in the 2003 Wimbledon final, which was a 3-set match against an injured Venus. The Nasdaq 100 Open, which some tennis buffs call 'the fifth Slam' because it is another two-week tennis tournament with men and women competing in large 128-player draws, has been won by Venus (1998, 1999, 2001), Martina Hingis (2000) and Serena (2002, 2003, 2004). Could finally beating her sister jumpstart Venus' tennis results? Only time will tell!

In the first set Serena was not serving with her customary power and Venus was very sharp, having 7 winners to Serena's 2 at one point. She had points to win the set 6-0 which Serena was clearly upset about. Serena came up with some of her best serves on breakpoint against her serve. After she lost the set 6-1, Serena destroyed her racket by smashing it to the ground. The second set was much closer with both players having chances to win. Venus broke first and had points for 4-2 but Serena broke back to 3-3 and soon a tiebreak seemed inevitable. In the tiebreak Venus had a match point on Serena's serve at 5-6 and Serena had a set point at 8-7 but lost the point on an amazing backhand winner from Venus which (barely) caught the line. Serena came up with a huge serve at 8-8 which Venus returned, was pulled wide by Serena, scrambled to also return and then Serena dumped the ball into the net instead of the wide open court. That set up match point for Venus on her serve at 9-8 which ended when Serena sent a forehand long. This was the first time in a long time where Venus had more winners than errors (31 to 30) though Serena did not play badly (18 winners, 21 errors). Venus next faces current Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova in a semifinal match on Thursday.

In non-tennis Williams news, both Venus and Serena will appear on Oprah next week to promote their new book Venus and Serena -- Serving from the Hip: 10 Rules for Living, Loving and Winning and their newly announced reality TV show which will start airing on ABC Family in July 2005.