{"id":777,"date":"2008-01-23T23:59:54","date_gmt":"2008-01-24T07:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=777"},"modified":"2008-01-23T23:59:54","modified_gmt":"2008-01-24T07:59:54","slug":"is-the-williams-sisters-era-ending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/is-the-williams-sisters-era-ending\/","title":{"rendered":"Is The Williams Sisters Era Ending?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Join us for the men’s Australian Open final! We\u2019ll be blogging live on Sunday morning, January 27, at 12:30am (PST)\/3:30am (EST)\/9:30am (CET). We’ll stay up if you’ll stay up.<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

Serena and Venus Williams lost their singles matches and their doubles match at the Australian Open. Are other players passing them by?<\/b><\/p>\n

As Ana Ivanovic<\/b> powered Venus Williams<\/b> off the court in their quarterfinal match at the Australian Open – Ivanovic won the match by the score of 7-6(3), 6-4 – I couldn\u2019t help wondering if I wasn\u2019t seeing the tail end of the Williams sisters era.<\/p>\n

Venus\u2019 sister Serena<\/b> lost to Jelena Jankovic<\/b> in the quarterfinals and the sisters also lost their doubles match.<\/p>\n

Both sisters were injured but neither one would reveal her injury. Serena was moving awkwardly and Venus walked onto the court with a slight limp and her thigh wrapped with enough bandage to cover a mummy. This is what Serena had to say about her injury situation:<\/p>\n

I was having some issues, but I don’t like to make excuses. We won’t discuss those.<\/i><\/p>\n

Neither Venus\u2019 mother nor her hitting partner knew why Venus was limping and Venus wasn\u2019t telling. Here\u2019s what she said about the subject:<\/p>\n

I never talk about my injuries.<\/i><\/p>\n

Listen, nobody thinks you\u2019re making an excuse if you divulge an injury after a loss. Justine Henin<\/b> said her knee was bothering her after her lopsided loss to Maria Sharapova<\/b> in the quarterfinals and nobody is complaining about her today. Players refuse to reveal their injuries so they can maintain a mystique of invulnerability but Serena and Venus have been injured so much that there\u2019s no mystique left.<\/p>\n

I am apparently not the only person wondering about the sisters. Someone asked Venus the following question after her match with Ivanovic:<\/p>\n

Has to be a long time, if ever, since you and Serena lost singles and doubles within 24 hours at a big tournament. If people start talking about the Williams era being over, what would you have to say to them?<\/i><\/p>\n

What can she say? Yes, you\u2019re right? What she did say is that she\u2019s a champion and she expects to be a champion. It\u2019s hard to count out either sister and we\u2019re not sure how much Venus\u2019 thigh was bothering her but there were points in her match when it very much looked like Ivanovic was passing her by.<\/p>\n

Both players started out slowly. Ivanovic has a bad habit of being very nervous coming out of the gate. When she got to the French Open final last year, she was so nervous she couldn\u2019t serve properly. Venus couldn\u2019t get her serve over 100mph (160kmh) herself.<\/p>\n

By the end of the second set, though, both players looked strong and Venus was just pounding the ball. At 4-4, she pounded a bunch of balls at Ivanovic\u2019s backhand then sent a ball down the line. Ivanovic ran the ball down then got Venus on the run for few shots before putting an inside out forehand away. Ivanovic then leaned back and let out a big \u201cOh yeahhhhh.\u201d Venus had hit her with her best shot and ended up playing defense.<\/p>\n

Venus didn\u2019t give up. She pounded a few more balls and got two break points as Ivanovic was serving for the match, but Ivanovic had found her serve by now and a few good serves put the match away.<\/p>\n

It was a great show by Ivanovic but I wouldn\u2019t say she\u2019s ready to win a slam just yet. It\u2019s those nerves! She should have rolled over Daniela Hantuchova<\/b> in the semifinals but she started slowly again: she lost the first set 6-0. She won the match, 0-6, 6-3, 6-4, and she\u2019s into her second slam final but she won\u2019t get away with that against Maria Sharapova who ran over Jelena Jankovic<\/b>, 6-3, 6-1 to reach the final.<\/p>\n

Blake is Getting Better, Really He Is<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m encouraged by James Blake<\/b>\u2019s play. I really am. He looked sharp against Roger Federer in their quarterfinal match and that\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n

Federer wiped him off the court in Cincinnati last year. Blake doesn\u2019t have enough game to beat Federer. He doesn\u2019t have enough variety and his strength \u2013 hard flat shots \u2013 feeds right into Federer\u2019s strength \u2013 quicksilver defense. Blake also has an average serve and he\u2019s not going to outduel too many players from the baseline. But he kept attacking Federer and played a very high level of tennis. Check this out.<\/p>\n

Blake was serving at 3-2 in the first set when he got to the net and hit a drop volley. Fed ran from one corner of the court to the other to get to the ball and hit a lob that landed just inside the baseline. Blake spun and raced back to the baseline and when he got there \u2013 no lie \u2013 he hit a between-the-legs lob! I have never ever seen a between-the-legs lob before, have you? Fed hit a soft overhead in response then followed that up with a forehand error. Definitely a top ten candidate if not top five for best point of the fortnight.<\/p>\n

Blake is now back in the top ten and it looks like he really is getting better at age 28.<\/p>\n

The question now is: can Novak Djokovic<\/b> beat Federer?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Join us for the men’s Australian Open final! We\u2019ll be blogging live on Sunday morning, January 27, at 12:30am (PST)\/3:30am (EST)\/9:30am (CET). We’ll stay up if you’ll stay up. Serena and Venus Williams lost their singles matches and their doubles match at the Australian Open. Are other players passing them by? As Ana Ivanovic powered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,23,110,54,112,113,116,85,120,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ana-ivanovic","category-australian-open","category-daniela-hantuchove","category-james-blake","category-jelena-jankovic","category-justine-henin","category-maria-sharapova","category-roger-federer","category-serena-williams","category-venus-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}