Venus queen of grass

You could hoist a pretty solid argument that Venus' ability to stay out of trouble with her second serve goes a long way toward explaining why she's swept through to the semifinals with the loss of only 19 games. She's been even more dominant as the competition has toughened, yielding only nine games in her last six sets, though one of those was cut short by Ana Ivanovic's retirement at 1-0 in the second.

Williams is one of the greatest woman players in Wimbledon history, even with the double faults. But it's a tribute to her professionalism that even at age 29 she knows how she can get better.

The paucity of double faults not only gives her a fighting chance on more points, but has the collateral advantage of adding to her confidence. Ask any player and he/she will tell you that the smoother their service games go (read: few double faults), the smoother the rest of their game.

A year ago, when Venus won Wimbledon for the fifth time, she had 24 doubles faults after five matches (and 30 for the tournament). This year after five, she's hit only 10. She avoided doubling by focusing in much more clearly on her second serves and by taking off the pace.

A year ago, she was averaging well over 90 mph on her second serve (96 mph in the semifinal against Elena Dementieva and 92 mph in the final vs. her sister, Serena. This year, her second serve averages for five matches are 83 mph, 86 mph, 80 mph, 86 mph and 85 mph. And because of her quickness, she has not been hurt by giving her opponents a better look at second serve service returns.

She's been broken just four times.

Tuesday, in a 6-1, 6-2 rout of Agnieszka Radwanska, she slugged five aces, to bring her total for the tournament to 22, and hit just one double fault. She averaged 110 mph on her first serve, just 83 on her second.

How much more seriously is she taking her serve this year? "In previous years, I felt like I just willed it in," said Venus. "And this year I feel like, technically, I'm just a lot better. So it goes in easier."

She now gets a day off before playing No. 1 Dinara Safina on Thursday. Venus leads that head-to-head 2-1, but Safina won on clay this year in the Rome semis, 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-4, not long after the Russian can risen to No. 1.

*

From my notebook:

* No surprises: The top four seeds are in the women's semis.

* No men's singles on Tuesday. They'll play the quarters Wednesday.

* Six American teenagers are into the third round of the Wimbledon juniors, including my personal favorite, Sloane Stephens of Boca Raton. Stephens, 16 and a semifinalist a few weeks ago at the French Open juniors, was gracious enough late last year to put up with me as a doubles partner in a round-robin just-for-laughs tournament prior to Nick Bollettieri's celebration of his 30 years in coaching. I shouldn't have to tell you we won all four games and her serving never made it easier, in my life anyway, to volley-stuff some weak returns. Great kid with a great sense of humor and a fantastic mother, Sybil Smith Stephens, the first black woman (1988) to be an NCAA All America swimmer -- at Boston University. Her father, long divorced from Sybil, is former New England Patriots first-round draft pick running back John Stephens. Also through to the third round: Alex Domijan, 17, of Tampa, the recent hitting partner to the U.S. Davis Cup team who next plays No. 1 seed Daniel Berta of Sweden; Jordan Cox, 17, of Duluth, Ga.; Harry Fowler, 17, of Houston; Devin Britton, 18, of Jackson Miss., who is coached by former Tommy Haas coach Red Ayme at Bollettieri's; and Beatrice Capra, 17, of Ellicott City, Md.

See you tomorrow.

Charles Bricker can be reached at bricker@tennisnews.com

 

Charles Bricker