CBSSports.com: Venus' age starting to show with latest U.S. Open loss
By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com
NEW YORK -- This time it wasn't Venus rising. This time it was Venus Williams, left knee strapped, forehand erratic, serve uncontrolled, losing and making us wonder whether this indeed might be the beginning of the end.
Kim Clijsters, out of tennis for more than two years, knocked Venus, the No. 3 seed, from the 2009 U.S. Open in a fourth-round match Sunday as bizarre as it was perplexing, Clijsters winning 6-0, 0-6, 6-4.
Clijsters, who won the Open in 2005, incurred an injury that kept her from defending in 2006 and then stepped away in 2007, answered the question about whether she still has game.
Venus, on the other hand, left us with more questions. She is 29, the knee is certainly a factor and she is without a victory in a Grand Slam event this year, although she did lose in the Wimbledon final to sister Serena.
It isn't merely the first set that can be used as evidence -- she lost 6-0, 6-4 to Agnes Szavay in the third round of the French this year. It is the cumulative work of the past few months.
Venus has reached that age when, with rare exception, tennis players start to decline. And while it would be foolish to underestimate Williams anytime she's across the net with a racquet, knee problems invariably get worse, not better.
Knee problems or not, Venus joined her sister for a winning doubles match after her singles loss even though their father, Richard, had been saying Venus should take it easy and play only singles.
As usual after a defeat, Venus was tight-lipped, offering platitudes but no explanation as to what happened, especially in the first set when, as they say in tennis, she got bageled.
"I think she played really well," Venus said of Clijsters, "and hit a lot of great shots. I wish her the best of luck. I would have liked to play better to win the match. I would have liked to have capitalized on some more shots."
Asked if she was surprised how well Clijsters, in only her third tournament back, played, Venus said, "Yeah, she played well. She always played well through her career. I'm sure she'll continue to do that."
What will Venus, winner of seven Grand Slam tournaments, do? In the past, she has talked about competing into her 30s, playing in the 2012 Olympics, but who knows?
Venus almost didn't get out of the first round of this Open, needing three sets to beat 47th-ranked Vera Dushevina. "It's going to be a lot of prayer and everything else I can throw into it," Venus said of her knee after that struggle. "But I'm tough."
No one doubts that, but she also is not as mobile as she once was, not able to use her superior athletic ability, which often has compensated for a lack of tennis fundamentals.
With the departure of Venus, the No. 1 (Dinara Safina), 3 (Venus Williams), 4 (Elena Dementieva) and 5 (Jelena Jankovic) seeds have been eliminated from this Open before the quarterfinals. And 26-year-old Clijsters, who quit to marry and have a child, is still in the draw.
"You're not really worried about results," said Clijsters, who is accompanied by her husband Brian Lynch, a basketball player from the U.S., and their daughter, Jared. "You're just trying to fight through the match."
She fought. Venus fought. Then she broke Williams in the third game of the third set, and that was the difference.
The first two sets? "Very weird," Clijsters said. "I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it. I can't speak for [Venus]. On my side, I felt like we never were really playing our best tennis at the same time until the third set.
"In the first set, I really felt like I was dominating a lot of points. I was serving well. I think that's where I kept her under pressure, kept her from what she's good at, stepping into the court, playing aggressive tennis. She also made a lot of mistakes, missed a lot of first serves. ... Then I felt like in the second set, she was kind of doing that to me for a little bit."
Clijsters' comeback began early this year when she accepted a challenge to play an exhibition at Wimbledon with Tim Henman against Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi. She had too much pride to go out and embarrass herself, so she started training as in the old days -- meaning before 2007.
"I've been working hard the last seven, eight months and enjoying it," Clijsters said. "It's something that's really important to me, as long as I can focus on tennis and have fun on the outside as well."
Tears rolled down her cheeks after the win over Venus, but surely they were joyful tears.
Venus smiled during the post-match handshake but understandably was grim in leaving the court, where a boisterous sellout crowd seemed to be supporting Clijsters as much as Venus.
A few hours earlier, Serena, the defending champion, was an easy winner. Serena looks as if she'll be in the finals again this year. But will Venus ever get back?
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