The Hindu : Sport : Venus eclipses Sharapova; Serena loses to Henin

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Thursday, Jul 05, 2007
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Sport

Venus eclipses Sharapova; Serena loses to Henin

Nirmal Shekar

Leander Paes-Martin Damm enter quarterfinals; Bhupathi-Sania duo moves up

— PHOTO: AP

SIMPLY SUPERB: Venus Williams was too hot for Maria Sharapova on Wednesday.

London: The best of sport often reveals itself to you when, as a viewer, you forget all about the raison d’etre of athletic contests — winning.

For, the most sublime in sport often provides the illusion that it has nothing to do with such mundane matters as winning and losing and the sweaty physical toil that goes with it.

Watching Venus Williams in full flow, with a balletic, sinuous grace embracing her every long-legged gazelle-like movement, you often lose track of the scoreline; it becomes an agreeable delusion as you tend to overlook the one-on-one contest and think of it as a marvellous solo act.

Ballet dancer

So it was on Wednesday in the 121st Wimbledon championships as Venus performed with the carefree abandon of a gifted ballet dancer to sweep the second seeded Maria Sharapova off the turf — however unintended that act might have seemed in the artistic context to the connoisseur.

World ranked 31, and with very few matches behind her this season after missing the first few weeks of the year because of a wrist injury, Venus turned on a display of awe-inspiring majesty to beat the Russian 6-1, 6-3 in an hour and 29 minutes for a place in the quarterfinals.

How did the care-worn, heavy-footed Venus of the first three rounds transform herself into the champion of old?

“That’s tennis. That’s life. It happens. My whole life I have been a big match player,” said the three-time champion, whose sister Serena was beaten 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 by the top seed, Justine Henin, later in the evening.

Poor Sharapova was shell-shocked. Seldom has she taken such a beating in a Grand Slam event; rarely has a fourth round opponent made her look as mediocre and clueless as she appeared to be in this match.

“I don’t think anything has to do with confidence. I am 20 years old. I’ve been No.1 in the world. I have won two Grand Slams. I have plenty more years to either win matches or find confidence,” said Sharapova when asked if her confidence was low when playing one of the Williams sisters.

This much is sure: the kind of loss that the Russian suffered on Wednesday is certainly not going to boost her self-belief.

As Venus performed at full throttle, consistently serving at 120mph and hitting blistering winners off both flanks, Sharapova, in pursuit of unreachable balls, simply had no answer.

Venus had 19 breakpoints — she converted four of them — on Sharapova’s serve while the Russian had none on the American’s serve.

Marathon man

This kind of domination was the last thing on Rafael Nadal’s mind. At some point during the five nerve-wracking days that his third round match against Robin Soderling lasted, Nadal might have felt like doing what the English cricketers did after nine days of play in the Timeless Test against South Africa in Durban in 1939 when the visiting team chose to abandon the match so that it could catch the earliest ship home.

Given the soul-shattering English summer weather, and a dour Swedish opponent who was simply unwilling to move over, the three-time French champion might have been pardoned if he had jumped into a taxi and headed to Heathrow to catch the first plane to Majorca.

But champions seldom quit without resolving a fight one way or the other. And the second seeded Spaniard survived more rain delays than a calculator might care to remember as well as a barrage of forehand winners from Soderling to finally go through to the fourth round with a 6-4, 6-4, 6-7(7), 4-6, 7-5 victory in four hours and one minute of playing time. The final point of the match was played five full days after the players had first stepped out for the contest last Saturday afternoon.

The three-time French Open champion let go of a matchpoint in the third set tiebreak on Monday afternoon with a forehand of blood-curdling violence but zero effectiveness. All he needed to do to see the back of Soderling was to gently place the ball in the open court. Instead, the Spaniard pounced on the ball and went for the lines. It was an inch long.

Nadal will play the in-form Russian Mikhail Youzhny in the fourth round on Thursday, weather permitting.

Not long after Nadal finished his marathon, Andy Roddick came back from 1-6 down in the third set tiebreak to beat Paul-Henri Mathieu of France 6-2, 7-5, 7-6(6) to make the quarterfinals.

Impressive

Leander Paes and Martin Damm of the Czech Republic, seeded five, were in impressive form as they raced past the Americans Scott Lipsky and David Martin 6-2, 6-4, 6-2 for a place in the men’s doubles quarterfinals.

The U.S. Open champions played their best match of the tournament so far, dominating the American pair from start to finish.

Paes also made a superb winning start with Meghann Shaughnessy of the United States in the mixed doubles event as the pair handed out a 6-0, 6-0 drubbing to Jaroslav Levinsky and Renata Voracova of the Czech Republic to make the third round.

Sania-Peer out

In the women’s doubles event, Sania Mirza and her Israeli partner, Shahar Peer, lost in the round of 16. They were beaten 6-0, 6-7(4), 6-1 by the top seeds, Lisa Raymond of the United States and Samantha Stosur of Australia.

After being outplayed in the first set, Sania and Peer came back from a break down to take the second in a tiebreak but Raymond and Stosur quickly reasserted their status to gallop home in style.

Later in the day, playing a Grand Slam match with Mahesh Bhupathi for the first time, Sania tasted success. The Indian pair beat David Skoch of the Czech Republic and Janette Husarova of Slovakia 6-3, 6-4 in a first round mixed doubles match.

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