VENUS REIGNS SUPREME

Venus Williams has defeated Mirjana Lucic-Baroni of Croatia in the first round of the Brasil Open on Tuesday. Venus won the match in the straight sets by 6-3, 6-3.

The scores suggest that the victory came very easily for Venus, but, it’s not the true story. The 30 years old Croatian veteran showed great resistance in the initial parts of the opening set and towards the end of the second set, but, in between, she played some poor tennis and that’s why, she got defeated by such a profound margin.

In the opening set, the first two games went with the serve. Baroni gave Venus the first blow in the third game, but, the Croatian couldn’t maintain that lead for too long. She dropped her serve in the next game and the scores got equalized at 2-2.

Venus held her serve in the fifth game and then, broke Baroni’s serve again in the sixth game to take a lead of 4-2. Baroni needed a serve break to bounce back, but, Venus didn’t let her do that. The American veteran held her serve in the 7^th and the 9^th game and won the first set by 6-3. She was in such imperious form that I decided to use up my bonus bet from Unibet on backing her – even though the odds were ridiculously low – I just couldn’t see her losing her form, or losing the match.

In the second set, Venus started in a belligerent manner. She broke the service of Baroni thrice consecutively and was off to a lead of 5-0.

Baroni bounced back with a couple of serve breaks and reduced the lead to 3-5. But, she dropped her serve again in the ninth game and that was the end of the match.

This was only the second match between these two players. These two players had faced each other for the first time 11 years back in 2002. In that match, Venus had completely outplayed Baroni and had defeated her by 6-0, 6-0.