The Hindu : Sport : Henin shows Venus the door en route to final

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Sunday, Sep 09, 2007
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Sport

Henin shows Venus the door en route to final

Kuznetsova comes back to down Chakvetadze in the other semifinal

NEW YORK: Venus Williams left the U.S. Open the same way Serena Williams did, undone by all those big shots off the racket of little Justine Henin.

In a riveting match filled with superb all-court play, Henin became only the second woman to beat both Williams sisters at the same Grand Slam tournament, reaching the final at Flushing Meadows with a 7-6(2), 6-4 victory over Venus on Friday.

“I just went with my heart. I just kept fighting,” Henin said. The No. 1-ranked Henin will face No. 4 Svetlana Kuznetsova in a title match featuring two past Open champions.

Henin eliminated Serena in the quarterfinals, and Venus said she wanted to right that wrong.

But it was the 5-foot-5, 125-pound Henin who worked every angle on Friday, constructing points, sneaking to the net and repeatedly placing balls on the lines. She pounded serves at up to 117 mph, handled Williams’s faster offerings, sometimes leaping to reach balls that bounced up near her shoulders.

Henin even came up with a second-set lob winner over the 6-1 Williams — a delivery that put a wide smile on the Belgian’s face and left the American slumping her shoulders and hanging her head.

Henin had some trouble breathing early in the second set, and said afterward it was something that bothered her the past few days.

By the end, however, Williams was the one who was physically spent, asking for a trainer to come out and check her pulse and temperature. Right after that, she hit some serves in the 70s while getting broken to trail 5-3 in the second set. That’s not to say the older Williams wasn’t good at times, too.

She broke when Henin served for the first set at 5-4, ending a 10-stroke point with a backhand passing winner, and a 16-stroke exchange with a cross-court forehand winner on the line. In the next game, Williams won the point of the match on the 27th shot, a cross-court swinging forehand volley.

But Henin broke right back to end it. Appropriately, the final shot was a backhand by Williams that sailed out, her 35th unforced error — 13 more than Henin.

Henin will be a heavy favourite to avoid a similar letdown. She is 14-2 against Kuznetsova, including a victory in the 2006 French Open final.

“I don’t want to think about it,” said Kuznetsova, who got off to a horrible start in her all-Russian semifinal against No. 6 Anna Chakvetadze.

How horrible? Chakvetadze won the first set despite hitting only one winner.

And then, slowly but surely, 2004 champion Kuznetsova began keeping the ball between the lines, and Chakvetadze began missing shots short, long and wide. In full control late, Kuznetsova defeated Chakvetadze 3-6, 6-1, 6-1.

“I played the worst first set. I couldn’t put the ball in, and I was really embarrassed by my game,” Kuznetsova said. Later on, though, it was Chakvetadze who was struggling to keep her composure, wiping away tears while waiting to return serves in the final game.

In the very first game, Kuznetsova missed four groundstrokes to get broken. That established a pattern: Over the first set, she would make 21 unforced errors, more than in her entire quarterfinal match. Chakvetadze then held serve to 1-0 in the second set, and earned three break points at love-40 in the next game. And that’s when Kuznetsova turned things around, winning 22 of 25 points in one stretch. — AP

THE RESULTS

Prefix denotes seeding

Singles: Women: Semifinals: 4-Svetlana Kuznetsova (Rus) bt 6-Anna Chakvetadze (Rus) 3-6, 6-1, 6-1; 1-Justine Henin (Bel) bt 12-Venus Williams (USA) 7-6(2), 6-4.