In a turn-around from many of their historically dificult-to-watch head-to-heads, sisters Venus and Serena Williams put on a no-holds-barred fight in the Saturday Wimbledon final, with the elder Venus successfully defending her title 7-5, 6-4.

Neither sister would give during the almost-two-hour spectacle, with one game lasting seven deuces and 14 minutes.

“I can’t believe it’s five,” said Venus of her fifth Wimbledon title in seven finals, and unfailingly producing public relations on the difficulty of playing her sister. “When you play Serena Williams, five seems so far away.”

Serena appearance-wise and statistically played a cleaner game than Venus with fewer unforced errors and more winners, but Venus stepped up on the big points, coverting on four of her seven break point chances. Serena by contrast created 13 break point opportunities, converting on two.

“I think I was maybe a little bit more relaxed than her,” Venus said.

The Williams sisters have now won seven of the last nine Wimbledon titles, and with the win Venus evened the career head-to-head at 8-8.

Serena, in a foul mood in her post-match conference, was nonetheless glad to a see a Williams lift the trophy.

“Venus played great this year,” Serena said on-court. “I’ve been working really hard and I’m just fighting for everything. We were just glad to be in the finals together again, we hope for it to keep happening. I’m so happy that at least one of us was able to win today. She was a little better today — it didn’t work out as I planned. But it’s definitely a great celebration for the Williams family.”

TENNIS-X NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARBS
Mats Wilander is selling his home in Idaho for $8.5 million, if you’re looking for some real estate investment property with your space change. Unfortunately — no tennis court, as Mats and family use the resort home as a retreat from tennis. The 81-acre property features a 10,532-square-foot main house that was built in 1999…

According to the Aussie papers, Lleyton Hewitt and wife Bec are expecting child No. 2. A women’s magazine broke the news after a reported $100,000 exclusivity deal with the couple, with undoubtably more money to come. An exclusive news deal for their first child Mia netted the couple a reported $1 million. The couple’s manager, David Drysdale, last week denied the Hewitts were expecting. Oops…

Marcos Baghdatis has pulled from Cyprus’ upcoming Davis Cup meeting with Portugal, almost certainly securing a loss for his home nation later this month. “This difficult decision was taken after serious consideration because of my heavy schedule,” Baghdatis said in a written statement. “I believe that his decision has been the result of his disappointment of having exited Wimbledon in the early stages but also because of his slip down the ATP rankings”, Cyprus Tennis Federation President Filios Christodoulou told Reuters. “This is definitely a shock for us because we didn’t expect a decision like this from Marcos. Had we known about this six months ago then we could have maybe arranged other alternatives but with ten days to go before we travel to Portugal, it has definitely come as a blow. I respect his decision despite the disappointment.”

Rafael Nadal blogging about the ATP relegating popular former tour manager Vittorio Selmi to a lesser role: “A person that has been working for 30 years for this sport doesn’t deserve this treatment. (It’s) something really bad from a human point of view that shows the type of people at the top of this organization.”…

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 1:00 am and is filed under Tennis, Wimbledon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.