Venus regains top-10 form
She may be ranked No. 60, but Williams shows her opponent she’s no pushover
NEW YORK For years and years, a first-round victory by Venus Williams at a major tournament would hardly merit a mention.
She is, after all, a seven-time Grand Slam singles champion. She’s been the runnerup another seven times.
She was ranked No. 1, owns Olympic gold medals, and is second to her younger sister Serena among active women in several key categories, including Grand Slam match wins, with 215.
And yet nowadays, at age 33, two years removed from being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that saps energy, hampered much of this season by a bad lower back, and her ranking down to 60th, Williams entered Day 1 at the 2013 U.S. Open having won a total of three matches over the past five Grand Slam tournaments. Plus, she was facing 12th-seeded Kirsten Flipkens, who was a semifinalist at Wimbledon last month and beat Williams on a hard court this month.
Looking very much like the player she used to be, Williams smacked serves at up to 120 m.p.h., returned superbly, covered the court well enough to hit a handful of swinging volley winners, and beat Flipkens 6-1, 6-2 Monday to reach the second round at Flushing Meadows.
Flipkens, for one, was not surprised in the least to see Williams play that way.
“If Venus is there — if she’s fit, if she’s focused — she’s a top-10 player,” Flipkens said. “Everybody who knows a little bit of the game of tennis can see that. Today, she was like a top-10 player.”
Williams, who topped the WTA rankings in 2002, hasn’t cracked the top 10 since she was No. 9 in March 2011. She hasn’t been past the third round at a Grand Slam tournament since a fourth-round exit at Wimbledon later that year. Indeed,
Montreal’s Eugenie Bouchard and Frank Dancevic of Niagara Falls, Ont., won their matches to advance to the second round.
Bouchard downed Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 to win in her U.S. Open main draw debut. Dancevic, meanwhile, defeated Robin Haase of the Netherlands 7-6 (5), 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7).
Earlier in the day, Toronto’s Sharon Fichman lost to Romania’s Sorana Cirstea 7-5, 5-7, 6-1.