TENNIS US OPEN – At 43 and 34 respectively, both Venus Williams (19) and Kimiko Date-Krumm remain an enigma on tour. They refuse to give up and retire and their 2-hour battle on Arthur Ashe for a place in the 2nd round showed their true resilience. The two elder stateswomen gave it their all but in the end, Williams proved to be the better player, taking it 2-6 6-3 6-3. From New York Cordell Hackshaw
US Open: All the interviews, results, draws and OoP
Venus Williams comes into this US Open with a lot of good notices behind her name. In the past few years, no one has given her any chance of getting to the 2nd week of the major much more win the title. However, this year, things are different. This summer has seen Venus’ star rising. Williams played an epic match in the 3rd round at Wimbledon against the eventual champion, Petra Kvitova, she beat her sister, world’s number 1, Serena Williams, on her way to the Montreal final and then got back into the Top 20 on tour. Now several pundits have picked her as their “dark horse” favourite to win this title. To do so, however, Williams has to get out of the 1st round and past Kimiko Date-Krumm. At times, it looked like Williams was heading for a surprise exit but like a true champion, she pulled herself together for the win 2-6 6-3 6-3.
Williams started off the match in great form. She held serve with ease and had four break points for a 2-0 lead. However, the errors began to leak from the Williams’ racquet and Date-Krumm was only too happy to take full advantage. The Japanese held serve and broke Williams twice in succession for a 4-1 lead. Williams was able to break back for 2-4 but Date-Krumm broke back immediately for 5-2 and serve out the set 6-2 in 34 minutes. Williams had 19 errors alone in the 1st set to only 6 winners. Most of her shots were either being dumped into the net or missing the mark by a country mile. Her opponent was far more efficient with 6 winners and 6 errors. “Not the ideal start, but she’s a tricky player. I think she started coming up with some really good shots off my serve. I think I just wasn’t able to convert enough holds. She just goes for runs, and I give her a lot of credit for winning the first set and really making it extremely challenging,” Williams stated
In the 2nd set, the American, egged by the crowd found her range again and put Date-Krumm on the back foot. Williams began taking control of points and imposing her more aggressive style of play on her opponent. Williams raced out to 4-0 and served for a 5-0 lead. Date-Krumm fought back to get one of the breaks but the deficit was too huge to overcome. Williams closed out the set 6-3 to level the match at a set apiece. In the 3rd set, Williams again started off the set in dominant fashion with a 5-0 lead and served for the match. However, closing out the match proved to be difficult for the American. She began making careless errors and languishing behind the baseline as she did in the 1st set. She failed to close out the match twice serving for it and soon saw her lead dwindle to 3-5. Serving to stay in the match, Date-Krumm soon saw match point against her. Williams sensing that the moment was now, laid into her backhand return and Date-Krumm was unable to keep the ball in play as she dumped it into the net.
The numbers were not pretty for Williams by any stretch of the imagination. She was only getting 44% of her 1st serves in and winning 59% of those points and 48% on her 2nd serve. She had only 17 winners and 36 errors. She rarely moved forward despite her being rather successful when she was up there. It was rather surprising that Williams with the bigger game, was allowing Date-Krumm, a much older player to dictate play on a lot of the points. However, Williams spoke of the age factor, “I don’t think anybody thinks about age. Because if you’re out on this tour it means you deserve to be here. You’ve got the skill. It must mean you know how to play.” In the 2nd round, Williams will play Timea Bacsinszky who moved through to the next round when her opponent, KiKi Bertens retired from their match.
