Venus Williams building for maiden French Open title
Conjecture about Venus Williams’ chances of winning a Grand Slam has for the past few years been scheduled for the lead-up to Wimbledon, but her recent form begs the question: can Venus win the French Open?
In the first half of 2010, the elder Williams sister has silenced speculation that at 29 (she’ll be 30 next month) her best tennis might well be behind her, as she defended her titles at the Dubai Tennis Championships and at the Abierto Mexicano TELCEL presentado por HSBC in Acapulco (on clay but not against highly ranked opposition), and reached the final at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami and the Mutua Madrilena Madrid Open.
As a result, Venus, who has returned to the top two for the first time in seven years, is now talking about once again reaching the world No. 1 ranking, currently held by sister Serena.
It’s a renaissance that puts Venus squarely in the frame for the French Open title after making third-round exits from Roland Garros for the past three years.
Ignore the fact Venus has only been a finalist at Roland Garros just once so far in her career, and that was when Serena defeated her to win the title back in 2002, and focus on the form of this fine athlete in recent months.
Few, if any, have come close to matching Venus’ results in the months since the Australian Open. None have won multiple WTA Tour titles in that time (the first of Kim Clijsters’ two titles of 2010 was won as players prepared for the year’s first major at Melbourne Park).
The world No. 2 began her spring clay-court campaign at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome, where the in-form Jelena Jankovic inflicted a heavy defeat in the quarter-finals, and then moved on to Madrid, where she was runner-up to the unseeded and unstoppable Aravane Rezai. The Frenchwoman was playing such fearless and inspired tennis there wasn’t anyone on the WTA Tour who could have touched her in that final, so don’t hold that loss against the American.
Along the way, Venus maintained her dominance over Israel’s Shahar Peer, and accounted for Australia’s Samantha Stosur, another who has staked a claim on the French Open after reaching two finals on clay for one title this spring.
While Serena will inevitably step on court at the French Open as the player to beat – the world No.1’s track record of bringing her best tennis to the majors earns her that right – and the hype surrounding four-time Roland Garros champion Justine Henin will predictably grow with every passing match, Venus has surely now staked her claim among the contenders.
Venus may have struggled to extract the maximum reward from her power game at Roland Garros so far in her career, but there are plenty of reasons to think that 2010 might be the year she can turn that around and claim an eighth Grand Slam singles title a couple of weeks from now.
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