Venus Williams’ 2010 season in focus
Venus Williams’ season is over, a knee injury forcing the world No. 3 to miss the remaining tournaments including the season-ending WTA Championships.
But while the seven-time Grand Slam focus turns her focus to 2011, we reflect on the season that was.
One of the most notable events in Williams’ year happened off the court, and yet has an unavoidable bearing on what happens on it. This year, Venus crossed over that invisible barrier between experience and, well, veteran status on the WTA tour: she turned 30.
It’s a testament to Williams’ longevity that she’s set to finish 2010 ranked inside the top-10 for the 11th time in her career, and fourth year in a row, but it’s also an inescapable truth that the distance between Venus and her last major title is growing ever greater.
And the clock is ticking.
Venus’ last Grand Slam title was at Wimbledon in 2008; her last Grand Slam final the year after, when sister Serena defeated her in the final at the All England Club. Her last major title away from the grass courts of Wimbledon was at the US Open in 2001.
Judge Venus’ performance at the majors by lesser standards than the lofty goals she surely still sets for herself and they are perfectly passable; she reached quarter-finals at the Australian Open and Wimbledon, the fourth round at the French Open and the semi-finals at the US Open.
And yet, this was the first year since 2006 that the elder Williams sister did not reach the Wimbledon final. This year, her tournament came to an end in the quarter-finals, and what’s even harder to reconcile, is that it was Tsvetana Pironkova, a player then ranked as the world No. 82 was brought about her undoing.
It’s one thing for Serena to dethrone her sister as the queen of the grass courts, but that Pironkova did so with relative ease is worrying when Venus contemplates another attempt at winning back the title at the Grand Slam that for a few years she had virtually made her own.
A Wimbledon full of upsets was one thing, but the US Open presented Venus with a rare chance to contest a Grand Slam without Serena (foot injury) standing in her way.
Sure that troublesome knee had kept her off the court since Wimbledon, but Venus overcame that lack of match practice (there must be something in the Williams genetics there) to reach the semi-finals where eventual champion Kim Clijsters claimed the three set victory.
No shame in that, but it was Venus’ performance in the second set tiebreak – which, with one set already in the bag, was all she needed to win to book a place in the final – that let her down badly. Double faults were key to her self destruction, and with the door ajar, Clijsters came charging through it.
It was a golden opportunity and Venus failed to seize it. Wind back the clock a few years and you’d suspect she would have licked her lips and gone in for the kill.
Two successful title defences – in Dubai and Acapulco early in the year – show Venus still has what it takes to win a WTA Tournament or two.
But with an aging body, and nagging knee problems, there have to be concerns about whether Venus can be a force at the majors in 2011.
We’ll know more in another year’s time.
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