Venus rallies to capture maiden US Open crown

Venus rallies to capture maiden US Open crown
Agence France Presse

New york, September 10: Third-seeded Venus Williams captured her second straight Grand Slam title, storming from behind to beat fellow-American Lindsay Davenport, the No 2 seed, at the $<\!q>15 million hardcourt event here on Saturday.

The 20-year-old American, after an hour and a half rain delay, rallied from a 4-1 deficit in the opening set for a 6-4 7-5 victory in one hour and 25 minutes. Venus succeeded her younger sister Serena, who won the title last year for her only Grand Slam crown.

Celebration was under way in the Williams' clan as father Richard took down to the court to embrace his daughter and did a victory dance.

The final marked the first time since the 1984 US Open final between Chris Evert-Lloyd and Martina Navratilova that two American women competed for the title.

This was the second time in two days Venus rallied back to earn the victory. In the semi-finals, she was down 3-5 in the decisive set and two points away from defeat against top-ranked Martina Hingis of Switzerland before turning the tables around.

``I felt I needed to change a few things. And it went the right way for me from there on,'' Venus said.

Davenport, who was appearing in her second US Open final in three years after having won here in 1998, said her serve let her down.

``I thought I was doing everything pretty well but I didn't serve the way I wanted to. The first serve percentage was just not high enough. It let me down,'' said Davenport, who had a 56 percent first serve winning margin but only 32 percent second serves.

Hampered by multiple injuries, Davenport, who could have regained the No 1 ranking had she won the title, is nonetheless content by the way she played during these two-weeks.

With the victory, Venus, who pocketed a $<\!q>800,000 cheque, has now stretched her winning streak to 26. A streak that began at Wimbledon this July.

Next goal now for Venus: The No 1 ranking. ``That's the next goal. We've hired a physical trainer. It's not always a lot of fun but in the long run it's gonna pay off,'' she said.

On fire from the outset and blasting winners at will, Davenport was in the zone. She earned a double break in the third and fifth game to go up 4-1.

But her game went inexplicably off the mark and Venus fought back from the edge of loosing the first set. ``I was returning great I was having fun in the rallies but I just couldn't hold it,'' she said.

She reeled off six consecutive games to close out the set and went up 1-0 in the second set.

Both women exchanged service breaks in the third and fourth game before Venus finally made the decisive break in the 12th game to sail to victory.

In the men's, Pete Sampras, a 13-time Grand Slam record holder, reached his sixth US Open final on Saturday but first since 1996. He overcame ninth-seeded Australian wonderkid Lleyton Hewitt 7-6 (9-7) 6-4 7-6 (7-5) in two hours and 36 minutes in the semi-finals. Samparas, who is gunning for the 14th Grand Slam title and one match away from equalling Jimmy Connors, who won a record five US Open titles, will have to thwart hard-hitting Russian Marat Safin in the final.

The six-seeded Russian beat unseeded American Todd Martin 6-3 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7/1) in the other semi-final to earn his first trip to a Grand Slam final.

The 20-year-old Russian will be the youngest man to play for the US Open singles title after fellow-Americans Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras squared off against each other in 1990.

Safin is also the first Russian to reach the US Open final and will be gunning for his first Grand Slam crown.

``It's nice to be in the finas but something is missing,'' Safin said. ``I want to win it and I'd like to know how it feels to be the champion here.''

The 6-foot 4-inches baseliner has been one of the hottest commodities on hardcourts this summer, reaching the finals of two tennis masters series. He captured the title in Toronto, where he beat Sampras in the quarter-finals after the American squandered two match points, and was a runner-up in Indianapolis.

``He believes he can beat me and that's a big bonus for him,'' Sampras said. ``But this time it will be a final of a major and he hasn't played many of them.''

The American said he'll need to counter Safin's powerful serve and devastating groundstrokes. ``Marat possesses a big serve. I'll need to get it back,'' he said. ``He's a powerful player and if you let him play and give him high shots to the forehand or backhand, he'll crack it.''

``My goal is to hold onto serve and get a couple of chances to break him and convert.''