Monday, September 05, 2005

US OPEN: Day 7

There was a very highly anticipated match played Sunday: Venus versus Serena in their 14th ever meeting (Serena leads 7-6). However, as usual, the match itself was a disappointment, with Venus winning relatively easily: 7-6(5), 6-2.

Venus broke first in the opening set but then when she served for the set at 5-4 played a completely horrible service and lost it at love. Venus saved two set points against her in her service game with some good first serves. In the tiebreak Venus was the more aggressive of the two, coming to the net behind powerful groundstrokes to Serena's backhand and won on her first set point.

In the second set, Serena's reduced mobility either due to fitness or her left knee injury was exposed as more errors flew off her racket. The story can be told through the match statistics: Venus has 29 errors, 19 winners and Serena had 30 errors, 17 winners. They both approached the net 11 times, Venus won 9 of those points, Serena only won 5.

On Monday there will be a classic match: Henin-Hardenne versus Pierce along with two other interesting matches: Mauresmo vs Likhovtseva and Schnyder versus Dementieva.

Tuesday will be Women's Quarterfinals Day, and I'll have a longer analysis of the matches to see if they follow my pre-tournament predictions.

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