The Hindu : Sport : Venus eclipses Davenport for title

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 04, 2005

Sport

Sport

Venus eclipses Davenport for title

Nirmal Shekar

SHINING AGAIN: Venus Williams marked her career revival with another Wimbledon title. — Photo: AP

London: They hunted with a lot of success in these parts long ago. Fossil records of the game certainly vouch for that.

On Saturday afternoon, the two women, Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport, magically sprang out of the cabinet where the game's fossils are stored to remind the brat-pack — and a lot of us too — that a pair of dinosaurs in women's tennis is still very much active and capable of producing a brand of tennis that the younger ones can still only dream of.

In the end, as Venus, 25, rising inexorably, eclipsed a gutsy 29-year-old Davenport 4-6, 7-6(4), 9-7 in an epic featuring supersonic groundstrokes and lasting two hours and 45 minutes of grass crushing and pounding in the women's singles final of the 119th Wimbledon championships, the much-maligned sport — women's tennis — itself seemed the biggest winner.

It was the longest ever women's final in Wimbledon history. It surpassed the 1970 final in which Margaret Court beat Billie Jean King in two hours and 28 minutes.

Venus, at No.14 the lowest seed to ever win the women's title since seedings were introduced in 1927, was so overjoyed after winning her third title here — and fifth overall — that she jumped like a kid on a trampoline long after the carpet had been rolled out for royalty for the presentation.

"Venus, have you stopped jumping,'' queried Sue Barker of BBC TV and the champion, hand on her mouth, just couldn't stand still for a moment in her new avatar as a Grand Slam champion. Even for an athlete as gifted as Venus is, this was something out of the wildest of dreams after a difficult period during which injuries, younger and hungrier opponents, and her own changing priorities, together conspired to dump her among the supporting cast.

Fighting tennis

What is more, in today's final itself Venus was outplayed for one half of the match and Davenport served for the championship in the 12th game of the second set, almost an hour and a half before the last point was actually played. Again, in the 10th game of the decider, Davenport had a championship point when Venus double faulted. But this was a day when Venus played her finest tennis with her back to the wall.

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