Venus Williams loses unbeaten record
VENUS Williams lost her title and an unbeaten record stretching back a decade when she succumbed to a 6-4 6-2 third-round, Dubai Open defeat against Lucie Safarova.
The 34-year-old American’s serve was at half pace for much of the match on a court temperature of about 40°. Her movement was slow and her appetite for the battle. .
Williams dropped serve in the opening game and after failing to convert three successive break-back points at 4-5, no longer looked a serious contender for victory.
The result was more a surprise given that this was only Williams’s second defeat this year, and that she may now have to wait a while before returning to the world’s top 10 after a four-year interval, one of her goals.
“Obviously I want to win and then your ranking goes up,” she said. “But I have been superhappy with the year so far and I am disappointed to lose. She is a player who hits the ball a little bit different. I don’t think I was playing badly.”
Safarova’s serve was certainly difficult to read, and she mixed in swerving deliveries into the body with others swung out wide, testing the reach on a right-hander’s doublehanded backhand.
The Czech player hit confidently, and moved remarkably well considering she had had a three-hour match the previous day followed by a doubles. “That’s what you train for,” Safarova said.
“I really felt good on court. It sometimes gives you extra confidence when you come close to defeat (against Casey Dellacqua of Australia) and you turn it around.”
Safarova says she drew confidence from winning a Grand Slam doubles title at last month’s Australian Open.
She was due next to play the winner of Ana Ivanovic, the former world No 1 from Serbia, and Karolina Pliskova, her rising compatriot.
Although Williams will return home earlier than expected after 16 successive wins in Dubai, it will not alter her decision to miss the Indian Wells tournament, which starts in three weeks’ time. “It will give me a chance to rest,” she said.
Her sister Serena Williams, the world No 1, by contrast has agreed to return to the Californian event after a 14-year hiatus, during which the sisters boycotted the tournament — a response to hostile, allegedly racist, treatment from spectators.
Asked if Serena had consulted her on this sensitive decision, Venus said: “You know, she didn’t ask me my opinion. She just said, I might be playing there. I said, Oh, okay. That’s pretty much the conversation.”
And asked if she could understand the decision to let bygones be bygones, she said: “I don’t know. I just respect every decision she makes, pretty much. There’s nothing complicated about it.”
Venus was then asked whether she would consider returning to Indian Wells one day, to which she replied: “I haven’t really given a lot of thought to it. I have just been focusing on this year.”
Earlier Agnieszka Radwanska, a former titleholder, was also beaten. The fifth-seeded Pole has been suffering from a virus and looked below par for the second day in a row as she lost 6-4 6-2 to Garbine Muguruza, a 21-year-old Spaniard who looks en route to the top 20.
Flavia Pennetta, a wild-card entry who saved four match points against Julia Görges of Germany in the first round, won 6-2 3-6 6-1 against the seventh-seeded Angelique Kerber, another German.