Win of the Week: Venus Overcomes Sprem's Challenge
May 10, 2004
Win of the Week: Venus Overcomes Sprem's Challenge
Venus Williams overcomes injury and fearless Karolina Sprem for three-set
comeback victory in Berlin semifinals.
BERLIN - Venus Williams walked onto centre court for her semifinal match at
the German Open in Berlin on Saturday with one thing in mind - to extend her
14-match winning streak to 15 and earn a spot in the finals for the third
tournament in a row. Extremely confident on the clay this year and arguably
the hottest player on Tour at the moment, little did she know of the challenge
that her young opponent, Croatian teenager Karolina Sprem, was about to put
up.
Never having reached a semifinal of a Tier I event, the 19-year-old from
Varazdin, Croatia, was having the tournament of her life. She was coming off
a solid straight sets quarterfinal win over Australian Open semifinalist
Fabiola Zuluaga, who incidentally had taken a set off of Venus the previous
week at Charleston. Against Williams, Sprem had nothing to lose, and it
showed.
Sprem came out of the blocks unrelentingly controlling the rallies and going
for every opportunity to finish the point that came her way. She won the
first four games of the match, and held on to take the set 62.
Williams buckled down in the second set, cutting down her unforced errors and
beginning to take control of the rallies. Sprem seemed to lose focus on her
aggressive tactics and before long the match was even, Williams taking the
set 63.
However, knowing that her success in the match came from her attacking
baseline game, Sprem began the third set just as she had left off in the
first set, hitting an array of offensive groundstrokes, many of them clean
winners, and breaking the Williams serve to take a 3-0 final set lead.
"I think she just came out there swinging," said Williams. "She had nothing
to lose out there. She started to hit winners, she was hitting and doing well."
Somehow, Williams held on to her nerves, overcame an injury to her ankle, and
summoned enough strength to match Sprem's powerful offense, eventually
wearing down the fatigued youngster and grinding out a 64 final set comeback
win. Though acknowledging that she was indeed fading, Sprem was gracious in
defeat.
"At 3-0 I felt my legs start to get tired," Sprem said. "It was a great
experience for me because Venus is definitely one of the best players out
there."
Perhaps the most inspiring aspect of the win for Williams was that she was
able to maintain self-belief throughout, even at the most seemingly desperate
of times, down in the third set and struggling with her ankle. With Sprem
reaping the benefits of an aggressive style, highlighted by twice the number
of winners as Williams throughout the match, the task was even more difficult.
"I wasn't worried," said Williams. "I was still certain of myself. I was
playing better, I was moving better. I was still very confident. I wasn't
stressed."
Asked if the reason that the test was so difficult was because she hadn't
seen her play before, Williams said no.
"These days this really doesn't mean anything," Williams said. "You have to
be ready. I was anticipating that she will come out and play like that...
she didn't make any mistakes at the beginning, but I did and could not afford
to."
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---禪心已作沾泥絮，莫向春風舞鷓鴣---
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