Venus survives match point scare to progress
Venus Williams showed her fighting qualities
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Thursday, 28, May 2009 09:51
Former world number one Venus Williams came back from the brink of defeat to progress into the third round of the French Open.
Williams started her match against Lucie Safarova yesterday and lost the first set on a tie-break. She fought back today to take the second set 6-2.
The American would have expected to power her way through the third set, but was forced to save a match point at 4-5. Williams then made the crucial break in the next game and served out for the match to take it 6-7 (5-7) 6-2 7-5.
"She was just firing for every shot and making them, but the delay gave me time to think about things differently," said Williams.
"It was close but these kind of matches are really rewarding and I think I deserved to win it in the end."
It was a far easier day for the other Williams sister Serena. The Australian Open champion was a comprehensive 6-2 6-0 winner against Spaniard Virginia Ruano Pascual.
Elsewhere, it was a desperately disappointing day for Australian Jelena Dokic, who looked on course for a huge win over Elena Dementieva.
Dokic, who has overcome personal problems to return to the game, took the first set 6-2 against the fourth seed and was 2-2 in the second. But she then suffered a back injury and left the court in tears.
However, Dokic returned and dramatically broke to take a 4-3 lead in the second set, but unfortunately she was unable to continue and had to retire.
"I went for a return and I just went down and couldn't get back up," said Dokic. "It's very painful. I hope it's not too serious. It's very disappointing because I felt as if I had the match in my hands."
Svetlana Kuznetsova progressed through to the next round as she secured a 6-2 6-0 win over Galina Voskoboeva of Kazakhstan.
Serbian star Jelena Jankovic also had an easy match today as she claimed a 6-1 6-2 win over Slovakia's Magdalena Rybarikova.
Home favourite Marion Bartoli suffered the shock defeat of the day as she was sent crashing out 6-3 7-5 by Italian Tathiana Garbin.