Venus defeats Stosur on way to semifinals
Venus Williams reinforced her pending move back to the world number two ranking with a 6-3, 6-3 defeat of Samantha Stosur to reach the semifinals of the Madrid Masters on Friday.
Venus, who began this week on fourth, will fall in behind her top-ranked sister Serena on the Monday WTA list, with the pair heading the table for the first time in seven years.
French Open semi-finalist Stosur, set for a career-high boost to seventh, has been the standout of the clay campaign, winning 14 of 15 matches coming into her clash with the American with a title in Charleston and a losing final — her only other clay defeat in 2010 — to Justine Henin.
But as in their three previous meetings, Venus claimed the victory, going through to the last four against either Israeli Shahar Peer of Li Na of China.
“Sam’s been playing well this season,” said Venus, winner of title this year in Dubai and Acapulco.
“I like to hit hard, and it looked like her game plan was to attack everything. She tried to take time away from me, but I knew I would not be pushed back. We both served and hit as hard as we could,” she added..
In another women’s match, Czech Lucie Safarova, Paris Indoor finalist in February, reached the semis with a win over Russian 16th seed Nadia Petrova 6-1, 1-6, 6-4.
In the men’s quarters, Nicolas Almagro put at least one Spaniard into the weekend as he defeated Austrian Jurgen Melzer 6-3, 6-1.
—
Post new comment