The Hindu : Williams order restored in women's event

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 04, 2003

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Williams order restored in women's event

By Nirmal Shekar

Defending champion Serena Williams plays a return to Belgium's Justine Henin-Hardenne during their semifinal match on the Centre Court at Wimbledon on Thursday. — AP

LONDON JULY 3. Never make Serena Williams cry. If a smart coach were to write out a list of Top Ten `don'ts' for the world champion's chief rivals, the first one would be that.

After the defending champion's awesome exhibition of aggressive grass court tennis in the women's singles semifinals of the 117th Wimbledon championships on Thursday _ when the French Open champion Justine Henin-Hardenne's challenge was blown away like a paper cup in a desert storm _ none of Serena's top rivals would ever want to do anything to reduce her to tears.

Early last month, in the semifinals of the French Open, Serena, then unbeaten in 34 Grand Slam singles matches, was leading Henin-Hardenne 4-2 in the third set. Over the next half hour, the American lived through the most nightmarish experience of her career.

And by the time Serena left the court, beaten 7-5 in the third, she was in tears. It was a long and difficult flight home to Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

In the event, when the two players met again on Thursday, Serena's response to that horrible experience in Paris was rather swift _ as swift and terrifyingly sudden as a sledge-hammer blow to the skull, as Henin-Hardenne found out.

The 6-3, 6-2 victory in an hour and 10 minutes advanced the defending champion to the final where she will play, like last year, her older sister Venus who came back strongly to beat Kim Clijsters, the second seed, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.

So, it's back to family business in the finals of the Slams. The French Open was merely an aberration. After playing four successive Grand Slam finals against each other _ Serena winning each time _ the sisters had failed to keep their appointment in Paris last month.

Slightly troubled by an old stomach muscle problem early in the match _ something which required treatment on and off the court _ Venus raised her game in the face of adversity even as Clijsters, after promising so much, collapsed in a heap of errors in the decider. A rain break at the end of the first set must have certainly helped Venus at a time when she was suffering.

Real Wimbledon begins

Meanwhile, the real Wimbledon will begin on Friday. The soap opera called Timbledon that leads up to the business end of the fortnight is over. The fat lady has indeed sung.

On song once again, the charming Frenchman Sebastien Grosjean dashed the hopes of an entire nation by completing a 7-6 (8), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 quarterfinal victory over Tim Henman. In a match that began shortly after 1 p.m. on Wednesday and was halted finally with the Frenchman leading two sets to one, Grosjean broke Henman's serve in the seventh game of the fourth set and quickly made his way to the last four stage.

The 13th seeded Frenchman will take on the unseeded Mark Philippoussis who carried a gutsy comeback against Alexander Popp of Germany to a fairytale finish, winning the thriller 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 8-6, breaking the 6ft 7in German's serve in the 14th game of the decider.

In the other semifinals, the tournament favourite and fifth seed, Andy Roddick of the United States, will play the fourth seeded Swiss player Roger Federer. Both had an easy time on court.

Roddick blasted aces and forehands past the Swedish veteran Jonas Bjorkman like a kid living out a dream for a 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 victory while Roger Federer showed no signs of the back trouble that gave cause for concern in the previous round as he outplayed Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

None of the four men who feature in Friday's semifinals have ever been that far in this tournament in the past. Change of guards, surely, at the championships.

Trespasser torn apart

Serena is not a woman who yields territory easily. Paris was no more than a wobble. Today, she was back in charge. Responding to the challenge posed by the Belgian like a trained attack dog would in the face of a trespasser in an English country mansion, Serena ran away with the match after a competitive first set.

Henin-Hardenne, at 5ft 5in and 57kg is a little elf of a woman in a sport that is increasingly the fiefdom of the big-made power hitters. But, in a contest, the Belgian brings to the table all the legendary virtues of the heroic little people _ and then some more.

Arguably the smartest player in the women's game, Henin-Hardenne has a simple strategy: what she doesn't have, she takes from the opponent. Power, for instance. The Belgian who won the French Open last month and set off celebrations in every street in Brussels, uses her opponents' power to her own advantage. The harder they hit, the faster the ball comes back at them.

And nobody in the women's game uses court space with such intelligence and craft. The single handed backhand _ inarguably the most beautiful stroke in the sport today _ gives her a lot of flexibility and she uses court space like a good artist would use a canvas to work up brush strokes of brilliance.

What is more, if Henin-Hardenne has the wrists of an artist, then she also has the mind of a seven star General deeply in love with battle. Her competitive instincts see her wriggle out of tight situations with tremendous self-confidence and skills.

About the only problem is, given her size and obvious limitations, the little Belgian is vulnerable against power hitters who can simply overwhelm her with the pace and depth of their strokes.

From the beginning today, it was obvious that this was not going to be an enjoyable three course French meal, so to say, for Henin-Hardenne.

Not only was Serena _ the memories of the events of their semifinal contest in Paris, where she believed her opponent was not fair and the crowds, which booed her service faults, even worse, haunting her, no matter what she says in public _ wonderfully focused from the start but on grass it was quite a different ballgame from the red clay of Roland Garros.

Cutting out unforced errors and staying aggressive right through, Serena started calling the shots early. There was promise of great drama to come with the first two games alone taking 12 minutes as Serena staved off two breakpoints to hold and then broke to 2-0 on her third opportunity.

And then, after falling behind 0-4, Henin-Hardenne came up with her now customary back-from-the-brink heroics. But it did not last. For, having put the set back on serve, the Belgian lost serve again in the ninth game and the American top seed closed out the set in quick time.

Once the set was in the bag, Serena was simply awesome. She served with great power and hit her groundstrokes as if her life depended on each one of those shots. Twice she broke the Belgian's serve and had an answer to everything that Henin-Hardenne tried.

Three big serves when serving for the match showed where her confidence was at and in an hour and 10 minutes everything was over as Henin-Hardenne hit a forehand return into the net.

Bhupathi/Mirnyi in semifinals

Meanwhile, Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi, the top seeds who were a game away from victory in their quarterfinal match against Martin Damm and Cyril Suk on Wednesday when play was called off, went on to complete a 7-6 (3), 7-6 (2), 6-3 quarterfinal victory.

What this means is, there will be at least one Indian playing in a championship match here this weekend. For, Bhupathi and Mirnyi will play the fifth seeds, Leander Paes and David Rikl, in the semifinals.

It took just three minutes on the court this afternoon, following a delayed start _ play began only at 7.15 p.m. IST following early afternoon rain _ for Mirnyi to serve out the match in the ninth game of the third set.

Bhupathi and Paes had faced each other in the same company in the quarterfinal stage of the French Open too. On that occasion, Paes and Rikl came out on top before losing to the Bryan brothers, Mike and Bob, in the semifinals.

In a mixed doubles third round match, the top seeded pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and his Argentine partner Paola Suarez were beating 6-3, 6-4 by Nenad Zimonjic of Yugoslavia and Iroda Tulyaganova of Uzbekistan.

Andrew Murray and Tom Rushby of Britain beat India's Karan Rastogi and Somdev Dev Varman 6-0, 7-5 in a boys' doubles first round match while the Amritraj brothers, Vijay and Anand, went down 3-6, 2-6 to Peter McNamara and Paul McNamee of Australia in the over 45 invitation doubles event.

The results (prefix denotes seedings):

Women's singles (semifinals): 1-Serena Williams (U.S.) bt 3-Justine Henin-Hardenne (Bel) 6-3, 6-2; 4-Venus Williams (U.S.) bt 2-Kim Clijsters (Bel) 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.

Men's singles (quarterfinals): 5-Andy Roddick (U.S.) bt Jonas Bjorkman (Swe) 6-4, 6-2, 6-4; 13-Sebastien Grosjean (Fra) bt 10-Tim Henman (GBR) 7-6 (10-8), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4; 4-Roger Federer (Sui) bt 8-Sjeng Schalken (Ned) 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

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