Serena roars past Venus to emphasise US Open credentials

Whatever doubts persisted about Serena Williams’ fitness and taste for the fight in her quest for a seventh US Open title and record-tying 24th major championship were brushed aside in stunning fashion on Friday night as she romped to a 6-1, 6-2 victory over her sister Venus in a scant 72 minutes before an electric crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Serena, the No 17 seed, one slot below Venus on the drawsheet, equaled her most lopsided victory in 30 professional meetings with her most inconvenient rival, overcoming an early injury scare to roar into the second week of the season’s final grand slam on a full head of steam.

Playing in the outsized arena where they waged consecutive US Open finals in 2001 and 2002, Venus taking the former and Serena the latter, the younger sibling who became a 23-time grand slam champion unleashed a beatdown so one-sided and comprehensive it at times felt uncomfortable for a jam-packed crowd expecting something resembling a fair fight between the two most decorated players of their generation.

“This was my best match since I returned,” said Serena, who improved to 18-12 against Venus and 11-5 in grand slam play. “I worked for it. I worked really hard these last three or four months. That’s life, you have to keep working hard no matter ups or downs you have. That’s what I’ve been doing.”

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It was the earliest they’d met at a tournament since Venus prevailed in the second round of the 1998 Australian Open in their first meeting on the women’s tour, but what it lacked in competitive ballast it made up for in a ceremony surely pregnant with nostalgia. The cost for a ticket in the 22,547-seat behemoth, the largest tennis stadium in the world by miles, which traded for less than $90 on the secondary market on Wednesday as the sisters played their second-round matches, soared upwards of $300 in the hours before they took the court.

To be sure Venus-Serena XXX was a moment, a very American moment, the two great lions in winter in internecine combat, and for once given the younger sister’s iffy form entering the tournament the outcome was in doubt.

Yet the one-way traffic that unfolded on Friday night didn’t come close to matching the promise of the evening as Serena, who won seven games on the trot after receiving treatment for an ankle injury during the first changeover, crushed 10 aces to just one for Venus.

“I think it’s the best match she’s ever played against me,” Venus said. “I don’t think I did a lot wrong. But she just did everything right.”

The idea of a Williams v Williams showdown has always been superior to the matches themselves, which are typically tense, awkward affairs. Friday’s was no different.

“Every time she loses, I feel like I do,” Serena said in the immediate aftermath.

Venus had been a household name even before her breakthrough run to the 1997 US Open final, landing the cover of Sports Illustrated amid a deluge of Madison Avenue suitors. And while Serena was first to a major title (the 1999 US Open), the tour belonged to Venus in 2000, when she won at Wimbledon and Flushing Meadows, along with Olympic gold in Sydney, rattling off a streak of 35 consecutive wins.

Even the kid sister was no match in those days for Venus, who won five of their first six matches including the 2001 US Open final. But Serena rapidly turned the tide with six straight victories, including the four consecutive grand slam finals that comprised the first of her two eponymous Serena Slams.

No player on tour has recorded more victories over Serena than Venus’s 12. But Serena has won 17 of 24 meetings since her sister’s opening salvo, including seven of eight in major finals.

This one was not supposed to be so easy for Serena, who turns 37 next month and is playing in only her seventh tournament back since giving birth to her daughter a year ago on Saturday.

But Friday’s outcome more than anything showed Serena, now four wins from a historic triumph on the court where she broke her grand slam maiden, is as ready as ever to not just compete but make good on the oddsmakers’ optimistic tack.

(Guardian service)