Venus wins Acapulco

Her road to the title:

(1)Venus Williams (USA) d. Nuria Llagostera Vives (ESP) 64 46 62
(1)Venus Williams (USA) d. (Q)Greta Arn (HUN) 63 67(3) 64
(1)Venus Williams (USA) d. (LL)Agnes Szavay (HUN) 62 57 61
(1)Venus Williams (USA) d. Barbora Zahlavova Strycova (CZE) 60 63
(1)Venus Williams (USA) d. (2)Flavia Pennetta (ITA) 61 62

A couple of notable names in there, although Szavay can hardly be seen as a threat these days. As is typical with Venus, she seemed to pick it up as the tournament went on. I watched her matches against Zahlavova Strycova and Pennetta and she just appeared to be playing hardcourt tennis on dirt - by no means a bad thing, since it's probably the only way she will ever win anything on clay. She is never going to grind it out against someone like Pennetta or Llagostera Vives on a claycourt, she is going to have to take the ball on and pound it down the line. Pennetta seemed to have no answers to her backhand down the line and no one, really, has an answer to that monstrous serve. Second title in as many weeks for Venus as she continues her great form from last season. If only not for that pesky Suarez Navarro...

Honorable mention of this tournament goes to Zahlavova Strycova, who had one of the best weeks of her career. Zahlavova Strycova (BSZ from now on) was a junior standout in her day but has struggled since to make the transition to the professional level. She got herself back into the Top100 last year after about a four-year period of trudging through ITF tournaments. She turns just 23 this month, so perhaps she will gain some confidence and fulfill her early potential? I will usually tend to write little bits about players I have just watched for the first time and this is one of those instances. BSZ had an atypical game for a Czech, she seemed to be more of a baseline grinder rather than an all-or-nothing ballbasher (Vaidisova, Kvitova, Safarova) but her problem was depth. The majority of her shots landed on or around the service line which will not get it done at any level, much less against one of the premier players in the world. She seemed to be able to change direction well enough but just didn't have enough pace or depth to really hurt Venus besides making her run side-to-side a little bit. Basically she was the usual grinder that found themselves up a creek without a paddle against a big hitter.

In the picture above, she seems to have a bit of A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E and it certainly showed during her play. She constantly berated herself between points, and gave off a bit of a psychotic impression, honestly. I had heard stories about a match she played against Sveta Kuznetsova at Wimbledon last year but never investigated for myself. Her serve seemed slightly above what her ranking would suggest, but Venus stands so close inside the baseline that she made it seem faster than it truly is, probably.

Final Verdict: B-...she's ok. Not Top50 level but solid enough to stick around in the Top70 or Top80 in the world. I think she will be ranked around #60 on Monday, but don't expect her to rise much higher.

In other news, Mardy Fish somehow won a title. He pushed the entire time in the final, thus not deserving more than the three sentences I am giving him here. Too bad for Korolev, he actually deserved it.