Monday Williams was pushed to three sets, but Tuesday night however she had a much easier time of it, rolling to a 4-0 lead in set two
before closing the match out to advance to Thursday's quarterfinals. Williams' serve, one of the keys to her game performed much better last
night than Monday as Venus finished with seven aces and only two doublefaults. "My serve is pretty aggressive. And a lot of the
times I'm going for my shots. It's important definitely to play aggressively because that's when opportunities come," Williams said.
One of Williams' two doublefaults on breakpoint cost her a service break to go down 2-3 in set one. But only minutes later, with outstanding
serving from Williams including a 117 mile per hour serve, Williams was up 5-4 in set one after holding serve.
Venus covered the net like a
blanket for a large majority of the match, even after the loss of points. After one volley error, Venus' father and coach Richard Williams was
still positive, "good try V, good try." On set point Wozniacki's age and inexperience may have shown as she tried to muscle a forehand
crosscourt, only to send it long.
After 35 minutes, Venus had taken the first set 6-4 and Richard had decided he'd seen enough for now as
he left the stadium for a break.
Richard returned with his popcorn just in time to see Venus slap a running crosscourt forehand winner which drew a loud applause from
the capacity crowd and helped Venus to a 4-0 set two lead. As Venus hinted at in her post match interview, she made several backhand
overheads from Wozniacki's lobs which thrilled the crowd, however both times that Williams was broken on both gamepoints at 4-0
and 4-2, Williams lost both breakpoints on missed backhand overheads which to be fair is possibly the toughest shot in tennis. "Basically,"
Williams said, "the best strategy is to lob it over to that side which is not the dominant. She hit some good
lobs and I couldn't get them all back."
Wozniacki had another brief string of points won as Venus sent a forehand long to get to 6-4, 4-4. Serving however, Williams
clocked 111, 111, 109 mile per hour serves and smashed an overhead winner to hold to get to 5-4.
The final game went to three deuces and saw a few errors from Venus. "Come on V," Richard Williams said after one error. A Willams down
the line forehand return winner drew a roar from the crowd and set up match point where Wozniacki sent a forehand down the line wide.
After the match Williams received a standing ovation. "I'm having a great time," said Williams. "I feel so wonderfully blessed to be here and
to be healthy enough to play. I feel really excited about my opportunity in the quarterfinals. The quarterfinals are really awesome so Memphis
has been really good to me."
Venus Williams plays either Laura Grandville, Eva Birnerova or Jarmilla Gajdosova in Thursday's quarterfinals.
