Venus downs Serena
Venus Williams defeated Serena Williams 6-7 (2), 6-2, 6-3 on Saturday for the first victory against her sister in more than five years and advanced to the final of the Rogers Cup at Montreal. The 34-year-old Venus hadn’t beat her 32-year-old sister in five matches going back to Dubai in 2009. Top-ranked Serena still leads the all-time series 15-11 . Unseeded Venus started with strong serving and took a 3-1 lead before Serena tied it 3-3. The younger Williams prevailed in the tiebreaker, taking a 4-0 lead. The second set was all Venus, who earned two service breaks while Serena struggled with unforced errors. She made two errors and dropped serve to trail 4-2 in the third set. Venus — who dropped serve only once in the match — served for the victory at 5-3. Venus hit a rocket serve on her third match point that Serena returned into the net. Serena had 19 aces and nine double-faults, while Venus had six aces and two doubles-faults.
France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga followed his string of upsets and advanced to the final with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over seventh-seeded Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria in the Rogers Cup at Toronto. Tsonga, seeded 13th, beat top-ranked Novak Djokovic on Thursday and eighth-seeded Andy Murray on Friday to reach the semifinals in the hard-court event. In the second semifinal, second-seeded Roger Federer faced Spain’s Feliciano Lopez.
An American tennis player who served a 12-month ban after getting caught with human growth hormone has earned a wild card into the U.S. Open. Wayne Odesnik of Florida and ranked 168th, hasn’t played in the U.S. Open’s main draw since 2009. He got a spot from the U.S. Tennis Association for this year’s tournament based on results at USTA Pro Circuit events. Odesnik, 28, was off the tour from April 2010 to August 2011 after pleading guilty in an Australian court to importing HGH into that country in January 2010. Odesnik has denied using HGH; he never tested positive. The International Tennis Federation originally banned him for two years. The ITF later cut that in half, saying Odesnik cooperated with its investigators.