Serena Williams Wins 2009 Tennis Australian Open Regains #1 Ranking

In one of the most lopsided finals in Australian Open history, American Serena Williams overpowered Russian Dinara Safina, 6-0, 6-3, for her 10th major singles championship.

The second-seeded Williams, who also won this Grand Slam event in 2003, '05 and '07, will replace Serbia's Jelena Jankovic as the No. 1 ranked player in the world come Monday.

The four Australian Open titles are tied for the most-ever in the open era as Williams joined Margaret Court, Evonne Goolagong-Cawley, Steffi Graf and Monica Seles on that list.

The Saturday victory for Williams, which came in just 59 minutes, occurred just a day after she and sister Venus took home the women's doubles title.

Looks Like Venus & Serena Williams May (Again) Take Center Court At The 2008 U.S. Open

Even as her baby sister prepared to play the night session against 29-year-old wild card Severine Bremond of France, ranked No. 121 in the world, tennis powerhouse Venus Williams tore through promising 19-year-old Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, 6-1, 6-3, to further demonstrate how she's sailing again at 28.

Two years after falling to No. 46 in the world through a wrist injury and inactivity, Williams has spent Wimbledon and the U.S. Open this year winning all 11 matches and all 22 sets thus far. Maybe it's that scope of vanilla she's been seeing and their pending engagement. Love does has a way of doing that to you!

Radwanska, who like Williams has a younger sister among the top 150 players, tried showing her ranking in the second set. Ripping some fearless shots into the corners, she in turn dredged some impressive stuff out of Williams, in particular some swinging backhand volleys with high degrees of difficulty.

From 3-3, Williams dominated, breaking Radwanska's serve in the seventh game and then crushing shots to break at 15-40 in the ninth game, heightening a summer that has included a Wimbledon title and an Olympic doubles title.

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Serena Injures Knee And Quits Semi-Finals, Is She Possibly Out For Beijing Olympics???

Top-seeded Serena Williams injured her left knee and pulled out of the Bank of the West Classic on Saturday, becoming the third singles player on the U.S. Olympic women's tennis team with a knee injury.

She retired while trailing during the second set of her semifinal match against qualifier Aleksandra Wozniak.

Williams' sister Venus and Lindsay Davenport, the other U.S. Olympic singles players, have already pulled out of next week's East West Bank Classic in Carson, Calif., with right knee injuries.

Serena Williams struggled from the start against the 85th-ranked Wozniak and first called for the trainer when trailing 5-2 in the first set. She got the knee heavily taped by the trainer and came out to finish the set, but appeared to struggle to plant on her injured leg.

Wozniak held serve to win the set and won 11 straight points to take a 3-1 lead early in the second. Williams appeared to injure the knee further while stretching for a backhand in the fifth game of the set and retired. She walked off the court and embraced her father, Richard.

Williams underwent surgery on her left knee in 2003 and missed 10 tournaments in 2006 with another injury to the knee. The extent of this injury was not immediately known.

Wozniak will play in Sunday's final against the winner of the night semifinal between sixth-seeded Marion Bartoli and Ai Sugiyama.
By JOSH DUBOW

For Now, Black Tennis Powerhouse Venus Williams Just Wants Everyone To Weave Her Alone!

Six-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams will be sidelined indefinitely, though she did not say why she will be out of action.

"I've just been having some issues that I need to resolve, so I'm working on that at the moment and I'm hoping to be back playing as soon as possible," Williams said Tuesday at the Bausch & Lomb Championships in Amelia Island, Fla. "I'm not going to get any further into it, but of course I love the sport." Williams said last week she was dealing with a medical issue when she announced her withdrawal from the Bausch & Lomb.

Why I Love Black Women: Serena Williams

That ball never saw it coming!

Permanently maimed and ultimately sacrificed after this head-on collision with Serena Williams' tennis racket, each of these fuzzy yellow spheres were assaulted during this year's Australian Open. Strength and intensity personified. You go girl!

Unfortunately, Williams had to resort to playing the role of gracious loser last night after quarter-final loss to Jelena Jankovic.

The defending champion later indicated she was well short of 100 per cent. "As an athlete you know not every day you're going to feel 100 per cent, and some days you have to win feeling 30 per cent," Williams said. "I was having some issues, but I don't like to make excuses. We won't discuss those."

Williams still managed to head out to Margaret Court Arena soon after a singles loss to play doubles with her sister Venus.

Asked if the injury problem she floated extended to the doubles, Williams offered: "Yeah, definitely all through the day . . . but it's nothing life threatening, so I'll be fine."

ANOTHER WILLIAMS SISTER LOSES AT THE US OPEN? SAY IT AIN'T SO!

Venus Williams left the U.S. Open the same way Serena Williams did, undone by all those big shots off the racket of little Justine Henin.

In a riveting match filled with superb all-court play, Henin became only the second woman to beat both Williams sisters at the same Grand Slam tournament, reaching the final at Flushing Meadows with a 7-6 (2), 6-4 victory over Venus on Friday.

"I just went with my heart. I just kept fighting," Henin said. "I got a bit nervous, but finally I did it. I'm happy to get this one."

The No. 1-ranked Henin will face No. 4 Svetlana Kuznetsova on Saturday night in a title match featuring two past Open champions.

Henin eliminated Serena in the quarterfinals, and Venus said she wanted to right that wrong.

But it was the 5-foot-5, 125-pound Henin who worked every angle Friday, constructing points, sneaking to the net and repeatedly placing balls on the lines. She pounded serves at up to 117 mph, handled Williams' faster offerings, sometimes leaping to reach balls that bounced up near her shoulders.

Henin even came up with a second-set lob winner over the 6-1 Williams - a delivery that put a wide smile on the Belgian's face and left the American slumping her shoulders and hanging her head.

Henin had some trouble breathing early in the second set, and said afterward it was something that bothered her the past few days. By the end, however, Williams was the one who was physically spent, asking for a trainer to come out and check her pulse and temperature. Right after that, she hit some serves in the 70s while getting broken to trail 5-3 in the second set.

That's not to say the older Williams wasn't good at times, too.

She broke when Henin served for the first set at 5-4, ending a 10-stroke point with a backhand passing winner, and a 16-stroke exchange with a cross-court forehand winner on the line. In the next game, Williams won the point of the match on the 27th shot, a cross-court swinging forehand volley.

But Henin broke right back to end it. Appropriately, the final shot was a backhand by Williams that sailed out, her 35th unforced error - 13 more than Henin.

Wind swirled through Arthur Ashe Stadium, playing havoc with the ball, yet both women came up with all sorts of terrific shots and engaged in several long points filled with reflex volleys, great gets and clean winners on the run.

It was precisely what might be expected from a couple of players who each won six Grand Slam titles.

Henin is the one who gets to try for No. 7 on Saturday. She's into her third U.S. Open final since 2003 - she won the title that year and was the runner-up last year.

Serena Williams Loses At US Open, Then Verbally Moons The Public: Sistah, We Got Your Back!

While the much anticipated NFL season looms patiently over the shoulders of many Americans, the U.S. Open Tournament has triggered some press conference drama that even Dennis Green can appreciate. The two-week long U.S. Open that features superstar American sisters Venus and Serena Williams has captured the younger Serena in a bit of a mood after dropping her 3rd straight Grand Slam quarterfinals match to Justine Henin of Belgium.

Immediately after losing, Serena was visibly upset at the outcome, but the verbal dissatisfaction came in the press conference that followed. After giving a few short, bitter answers to why she lost, her assertion that Henin played better while hitting a lot of lucky shots caught the attention of fans and broadcasters who pointed out the unsportsmanlike nature of the comments.



It wasn’t Henin’s skill or tactics that got her the win, but her lucky shots. If the fans of the game didn’t take offense to those comments, Serena’s eventual claim that she would have skipped the press conference if she could afford the fine marked her as a petulant crybaby.

Although the post match comments were disrespectful to the legitimate winner, we have to stop gasping and realize that the girl was frustrated and tired of seeing the same person continue to beat her on a main stage.

There’s no rule in tennis that says the female athletes can’t be confident in their ability and visibly upset when another makes her recent millions by closing the door in her face. This frustration has obviously reared its ugly head in the form of a careless rant in the face of a question a PR rookie could tackle. So give the sister a break, let her be a bad sport in the moment.

Big Sister Venus Advances To Semifinals, Will Face Henin

It will make for a better match when they face each other again anyway. John McEnroe made himself famous for his toddler-style of public relations, so tennis isn’t getting anything now that hasn’t been done 10 times worse already.

Keep talking, it’s the only way they’ll ever hear you.--JJJ