TENNIS WTA MONTREAL – All week, Venus Williams defied all odds in Montreal. Prior to this tournament, she had never won a single match in Canada during her illustrious 20-year career. She now found herself in the final of the 2014 Roger’s Cup having won 5 matches. She had turned back time. In the championship match, said time caught up with her as she faced Agnieszka Radwanska who was also having a great week in Montreal. Cordell Hackshaw
All week, Venus Williams defied all odds in Montreal. Prior to this tournament, she had never won a single match in Canada during her illustrious 20-year career. She now found herself in the final of the 2014 Roger’s Cup having won 5 matches including getting past the likes of Angelique Kerber (5) in the round of 16 and her younger sister, world’s number 1, Serena Williams in the semifinal. Williams, 34 years old and battling Sjogren Syndrome, coming into this match looked every bit like the former number 1 and 7-time major champion she is. She had turned back time. In the championship match, said time caught up with her as she faced Agneizska Radwanska (3) who was also having a great week in Montreal. Despite being down 3-5 in the lifetime head-to-head against Williams, Radwanska won their last two meetings in straight sets. It would be no different this time around for their 9th meeting as Radwanska dismissed an erratic Williams 6-4 6-2 for her 1st title of the year.
Williams started off relatively well as she held serve and won the first two points on Radwanska’s serve to lead 0-30. However, she allowed Radwanska to dig herself out of the hole by committing reckless errors and Radwanska held serve. This patch of bad play continued as Radwanska was able to break Williams twice to lead 4-1. The American staged a mini comeback of sorts as she broke the Pole and had break points to get even at 4-4. However, Williams proved to be far too error prone in these big moments, mistiming the ball and missing relatively easy volleys. She would commit a total of 24 errors for the set compared to her opponent who only had 6. Radwanska therefore, had no trouble in serving out the opening set 6-4.
In the 2nd set, it was more of the same. Williams was broken early and Radwanska lead 2-0. Williams was able to break back and even things at 2-2 but she was immediately broken at love. Down 2-3, Williams took advantage of the on-court coaching rule and had her hitting partner, David Witt on at the changeover. However, whatever advice he provided to her proved futile as Williams continued with her erratic style of play. Radwanska wasted no time in wrapping up the match as she punctuated her efficient and clean manner of play with an ace to close out the match 6-4 6-2 in an hour and 21 minutes. She played well within herself and looked to be a possible threat for the US Open title. “[O]ne of my biggest title[s]. As you can see in the draw pretty much all top players. So very, very special title for me … I think I even more happy to beat Venus when she’s really on fire,” Radwanska later stated.
After the match, Williams did not reference her struggles with Sjogren’s Sydrome but offered a different reason for her poor level of play, “I played like six matches in a row … That’s great for me. Instead of unreasonable fatigue that’s unconquerable, just the opposite really: a fatigue from too much success. That’s the positive of today. I ran out of energy because I was winning too many matches. I haven’t had that problem in a long time.” This fatigue had a major effect on the match as Williams committed a total of 41 errors for the match which is over 5 times more than Radwanska who had only 8 errors. Her service game was dismal compared to its stellar performance all week. She dropped serve once against Serena in the semifinal but was broken five times in the final. Nonetheless, the American was happy with her efforts this week as she moved back into the top 20. “I totally wanted to be in the top 20 like earlier this year. I’ve been having goals … I would love to hit the top 16 and just keep going forward after that. [I]f I can continue this level of tennis, it will be something that can happen for me.” Meanwhile, Radwanska moves to the second spot in the US Open Series.
