KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. – Venus Williams is 6-foot-1 and looked
even taller Thursday, playing high-wire tennis and rising above the
debate about fixed matches and racist fans to defeat her most
irksome rival.
|  | | Martina Hingis of Switzerland returns a serve from Venus Williams of the United States during their semifinal match at the Ericsson Open. |
Williams gambled by swinging all-out on shot after shot, and the
strategy worked. She controlled the rallies, kept defending
champion Martina Hingis on the defensive and won 6-3, 7-6 (6) in
the semifinals at the Ericsson Open.
"That is my game, to hit the ball," Williams said. "Any time
that I try to play otherwise, I become an average player."
She avenged the most lopsided loss of her career, a 6-1, 6-1
drubbing against Hingis at the Australian Open semifinals in
January.
In the final Saturday, Williams will bid for her third Key
Biscayne title against the winner of the Friday match between
No. 4 Jennifer Capriati and No. 7 Elena Dementieva. That match originally was scheduled for Thursday, but was pushed back a day by rain.
Controversy engulfed the Williams family following Venus'
withdrawal from the Indian Wells semifinal against her sister
Serena on March 15. There was speculation she ducked the match, and
when the crowd booed the family, her father, Richard, said the
jeers were racially motivated.
The Slovakia-born Hingis discounted his allegation as
"nonsense," saying she could counter with a charge of racism
against crowds in the United States because they're pro-American.
Williams defended her father and denied fixing matches but
otherwise tried to stay out of the debate.
"For me it's not really very difficult because in my opinion
all these things going on around me are not very important," she
said. "Tennis is not all and everything for me, so I really have
been able to keep my game under control."
Playing with a bandage on each knee, the third-seeded Williams
showed no effects of the knee tendinitis that she cited for her
withdrawal at Indian Wells. She took the offensive from the start
and hit 51 winners but also 51 unforced errors, numbers that even
she found startling.
"Oh my God. Really?" Williams said. "Maybe I need to go to an
11-step program for unforced errors."
Her father, watching from the front row, liked his daughter's
zealous play. When she took a big swing at an easy backhand and
slammed it into the net, they grinned at each other.
"It was kind of weird," Hingis said. "She didn't really give
me too much timing. It was like she hit a winner, and then she made
a stupid mistake."
Hingis had distractions of her own: She's expected to testify
Monday in the Miami trial of a man charged with stalking her at
last year's tournament.
As for the more mundane matter of tennis rankings, Williams is
gaining on Hingis, who has been No. 1 for 183 weeks. Next week
Williams will climb from third to second for the first time, moving
ahead of Lindsay Davenport.
"She always comes up with some great tournaments," Hingis
said. "So the other question is, can she keep it up? Can her body
keep it up? You see all the bandages, like the wrist and legs, and
last week she retired, so you don't know."
Williams said she looks forward to taking April off but expects
to be ready for the final.
"I'm OK," she said. "If I was hurting too much, then I
wouldn't play."
With the help of a fast start, she needed only two sets against
Hingis, who let a game point slip away in each of the first three
games and fell behind 4-0. There were 56 points played before
Hingis finally won a game, and she double faulted to lose the first
set.
The second set was tighter, but Hingis missed a chance to serve
it out at 5-4. She held a set point at 6-5 in the tiebreaker, but
Williams smacked overhead and forehand winners for a 7-6 lead, then
closed out the victory when Hingis pushed a backhand wide.
Williams extended her winning streak on Key Biscayne to 17
matches. She won the tournament in 1998 and 1999, then was
sidelined last year by wrist tendinitis.
"If I could play every tournament like I do the Ericsson," she
said, "I'd be undefeated." Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories |
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ALSO SEE
Venus Williams comes to the defense of her father
Rafter defeats Federer to reach semifinals
Thursday's results
Capriati earns straight-sets victory over Serena Williams
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Tony Kornheiser Show: ESPN's Sal Paolantonio reports on the latest controversy surrounding the Williams family.
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