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Venus Cruises, Sets Up Fourth-Round Clash with Ivanovic

Written by Brian Cleary
Friday, 31 August 2007
Did Venus Williams have dinner plans in the city after her match tonight? Did she have tickets to an off-Broadway show? Whatever the case, Williams played fast, focused and most importantly, extremely well. The No. 12 seed followed her sister Serena on Arthur Ashe Stadium and dismantled a very respectable player in Alona Bondarenko, the No. 21-seed, 6-1, 6-2 in a mere 58 minutes. In all likelihood, Williams’s laser-like focus had to do with the fact that she can spare no energy at the moment if she wants to win her third US Open title. Her game is sharp and her body seeming fit like never before. But she also, from here on out, has one of the toughest draws in recent Grand Slam memory. After Bondarenko, Williams has nothing but heavyweights. Seeded No. 12, Williams next takes on the No. 5-seed and fast-rising star Ana Ivanovic, who reached the final of the French Open earlier this year. If she wins there, she could end up playing the No. 3 seed Jelena Jonkovic. If she passes both those tests, she will likely have a date with the winner of a Serena Williams-Justin Henin battle. And also in this half of the draw is Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli. All these players, save for Jankovic, have either won a Grand Slam this season or been in a Grand Slam final. Looking ahead in the draw may or may not have played into how business-like Williams approached this third-round encounter. But the fact that her game is on right now and that she got on-and-off the court today in under an hour certainly won't hurt her chances going forward. In the first set tonight, Williams hit four games worth of winners at 16, three aces, broke Bondarenko three times, and closed out the set in 24 minutes with an ace. The second set she cooled off ever so slightly, at times looking like she might have been playing too fast and furious. But she still managed 14 winners, broke three times and looked every bit as sharp as the statistics suggest. Williams, who won her fourth Wimbledon title in July, as the No. 31-ranked player, the lowest ranked woman to ever win there, is looking to pull off some similar magic here. “I just want to take that experience from Wimbledon and do it right here—I’ve done it before," she said after the match. "I had so many emotions at Wimbledon. I was up and around. If I was a little more even here, it would be nice." Bondarenko was not an easy third-round opponent. She won Warsaw in May, beating Henin in the final, and reached the third round of the Australian Open and Wimbledon. But Ivanovic, who also looked extremely sharp in dismantling Vera Dushevina today 6-1, 6-3, will be an even bigger challenge. "She's also playing good at the moment,'' Ivanovic said after her own match today. "But definitely I think I have chances. I'm looking forward to that match because I think I'm in a good shape." Match Facts - Tennis is a family affair for Bondarenko. She is coached by her parents, Vladimir and Natalia. Her two sisters, Kateryna and Valerian, are also professional tennis players. - Williams owns 35 career singles titles and has earned $17,505,523 going into this year's Open. - Venus has just launched a new, affordable clothing line, called EleVen, in which everything in the 120-piece collection is priced at $19.98 or less. http://www.usopen.org/en_US/news/match_reports/2007-08-31/200709011188708278062.html !