Thursday 11th October 2007

VENUS SHINES THROUGH
by Barry Wood

Venus Williams emerged as a winner, twice, at the PTT Bangkok Open on Thursday. First, she quickly finished off her match against Caroline Wozniacki. That had been suspended overnight because of rain, with Venus leading 6-2 4-1. It ended 6-2 6-2, giving Venus her second win in two weeks over the Dane.

Venus had won the first three games of that match, but then dropped her serve with two consecutive double-faults as Wozniacki pulled back to 2-3. That was only a brief setback for the second seeded American though, and she took the next three games to claim the set.

The Wimbledon champion also got off to a good start in the second set, breaking in the opening game, and then she broke again for 4-1. Rain forced them off court with Venus leading the next game 40-15, and when they resumed on Thursday Venus quickly closed out the match.

Then she faced Tamarine Tanasugarn, and the first set was quite a battle. First, Tammy managed to break Venus in the opening game, but after holding a game point for 4-1 she allowed Venus to break back. Another break in the 10th game gave a relieved Venus the set. The second set though wasn't really a contest, with Venus claiming the first five games.

Tamarine knew she had a tough draw, but that she just had to do as well as she could.

"I just try hard in every match," said Tammy. "I knew it was going to be a tough week for me because last year I did well and had to defend a lot of points. But I think it's great for the tournament and Thai players to have great players here."

Tammy also turned her mind to the Asian Hopman Cup, which will be held in Bangkok next month. Six countries will compete, with the winners taking part in the Hopman Cup in Australia at the end of December.

"It will be the first time I'm playing mixed doubles with Danai (Udomchoke) and it's going to be very exciting," said Tammy. "Neither of us have played a lot of mixed doubles but it's going to be fun. All of the Asian teams we'll be playing are great teams and it's going to be tough, but it's good that we'll be playing at home and having the support from the home crowd."

As for Venus, she felt she had been in a good match.

"It's definitely been an interesting start to the tournament," said Venus. "The first match was short today, but it's the preparation that goes into playing a match. I think Tamarine played well today. She was going for her shots and was aggressive and just doing her best for her fans and everyone here."

Shahar Peer clearly likes playing in Thailand. In fact she said so after her first round match. Last year she won the Pattaya Open, and on Thursday she wasted no time in sweeping past Anastasia Rodianova 6-1 6-1.

One of the interesting things about tennis is that is unpredictable. Last week Virginie Razzano beat Venus Williams to win the Japan Open. And she'd won Guangzhou the week before. No one was in better form. So, she should have had no trouble against a Polish wild card, Urszula Radwanska, should she. But she did. Urszula won 7-6 (7-5) 7-5. The match lasted a minute under three hours, and maybe Razzano just ran out of steam as Radwanska won the final three games.

Radwanska will now play Yung-Jan Chan, who had to battle for two hours 13 minutes to overcome a strong challenge from Alexsandra Wozniak before winning 4-6 6-3 6-2.

Zi Yan, who came through the first round when top seed Jelena Jankovic retired with heat illness on Wednesday, made the most of her good fortune by beating Olga Poutchkova 3-6 6-1 6-1 to reach the quarter-finals.

One match, again, was halted overnight by rain, with defending champion Vania King stuck in a first set tiebreak against Dominika Cibulkova.