Venus Williams eased past Samantha Stosur 6-3 6-3 and reached the semifinals of the Mutua Madrilena Madrid Open. Venus is now 4-0 against Stosur and has maintained the pattern of never losing more than four games in a set against the Australian.
Venus’s opponent in the semifinals will be Shahar Peer, the Israeli who will bear the burden of being the one who defeated No.13 seed Li Na at the Madrid Open. Why am I saying this? Because Li is donating all her Madrid money to earthquake-hit Yushu County in northwest China. Li will help the county with $57,500, and had the Chinese reached the semis, the amount would have been more than twice as high.
Lucie Safarova, coming off quarterfinals in Stuttgart and Rome, continued her fine form and upset No.16 seed Nadia Petrova 6-1 1-6 6-4 in Madrid quarters. Next for Safarova will be Aravane Rezai, the winner over seventh seed Jelena Jankovic, 7-5 6-4. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)
May I ask what kind of comment that is about Shahar Peer having to “bear a burden”? I’m guessing you were trying to be funny. Not funny. This is professional tennis. Are you suggesting that Peer should have deliberately lost to Li Na, so she could win more money to donate to earthquake victims?
If you were trying to add some color to your summary, perhaps you could have talked about how Jelena Jankovic looks like she’s wearing some lettuce, Aravane Rezai looks like she’s either at Mardi Gras or a nightclub, Venus looks like she’s wearing lingerie and Peer needs clothes that fit properly.
Or maybe just focus on how they played tennis. I’m watching a replay of Rezai-Jankovic and Rezai’s powerful groundstrokes are catching Jankovic flatfooted, especially the ones she is sending down the line. So in winning against Stosur, did Venus play well, play “ugly”, or was it competitive and a well played match by both ladies?
Moving right along!! :))
Does anyone know what the deal was with the handshake between Rezai and Jankovic at the end of their match?
That was one seriously frosty handshake! (from JJ, Rezai looked a bit bewildered by it all)
Monique, I was just kidding, if you didn’t like my joke that’s alright. I’m not suggesting Peer should have deliberately lost.
K07, they don’t like each other:
http://cowbell.typepad.com/forty_deuce/2010/05/oh-the-water-its-still-over-the-bridge.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: FortyDeuce (Forty Deuce)
http://cowbell.typepad.com/forty_deuce/2010/05/no-you-may-not-order-off-menu-you-pretentious-asshole.html
Yup, did a bit of looking into it… they are both quite outspoken, so I can see why they wouldn’t get along very well….
Hahaha, those articles made me laugh 🙂
Yeah, C Note has excellent articles!
Haha 😀
Hahaha, it seems WTA has got one more loud mouth. Rezai likes to run her mouth and is very self-confident. I think her attitude must wind JJ up pretty well. But it’s really funny, when JJ is mad everyone has to know it 😉
I just saw the hightlights of the match and I must say I do not like Aravane’s style of play. Yet another ballbasher. But it sometimes works apparently.
OMG I’M A BALLBASHER!
Don’t think that is giving Rezai enough credit by merely saying she is a ‘ball basher’…. she generates so much racquet head speed, yet has incredible control, depth and accuracy on her shots. I can’t believe some of the winners she is coming up with in her matches….
Sorry to offend Jacob, but I think we all have to be careful about making jokes related to disasters. Wouldn’t it have been enough to mention that Li Na was donating all her prize money? Actually thank you for saying that in your post, Marija. I didn’t know that.
I think k07 makes a great point. Rezai is hitting hard with good control. She controlled a lot of rallies. I just saw her beat Venus! Rezai is feisty. I saw her complain about Michelle Larcher de Brito last year (I think), the shrieking Portuguese youngster.
I do wish there was more variety in the women’s game. It’s all baseline rallies, power hitting, meltdowns and attitude without consistent results. I wish there were more Amelie Mauresmos, Martina Navratilovas, Evonne Goolagongs, Margaret Courts and Billie Jean Kings. Serve and volley just to mix it up.
I understand this is a blog and meant to be informal and fun. But I’ve noticed a lack of civility and judgement on many different sites these days. We are all fans of the game though we have our personal likes and dislikes about the players. We don’t like it when they cross that line, so maybe we should follow those same standards.
Well, I think rezai is a ball basher because her game is all about power from the baseline. She never comes to the net, no volleys, no dropshots just non-stop heavy hitting. I think she hits even harder than Venus. I wonder how would she do against Kim Clijsters or Nadia Petrova though.
marine, who do you think hits hardest these days, just on the basis of pure power? venus, rezai, clijsters, and petrova have been mentioned. any others? serena, dementieva, kleybanova, dellacqua, or bartoli? would davenport and seles qualify? anyone care to rank them?
Monique, it sure would have been enough, but I said the other thing as well, and although I probably could have made my sentence better, I don’t think it was a disaster. Yes, I wanted to include the fact about Li’s donation, because I hadn’t had time and opportunity to mention it before (when I first heard about it), so I though the loss to Peer was a good occasion for my readers to hear about it. And one more thing – we all make mistakes and you can never please everyone. I received an email from a person saying how he very much liked my comment about the prize money.
Marine, I was closely observing Rezai’s shots in the final and I also think she hits harder than Venus.
Thanks Marija, I appreciate the exchange.